House Freedom Caucus

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is seemingly trying to get a handful of far-right members of the Freedom Caucus to chill out and stop threatening to redo the speakership election. They’re not likely to successfully depose him, but no one is eager for a redo of the January spectacle as a few loud members seek to reassert their authority. And, so, in what is seemingly a half-hearted effort to throw them a bone, McCarthy went on Fox News and promised to create some vague “commission” that’ll review further cuts to next year’s budget.

The speaker then took it a step further. Instead of just promising that “this isn’t the end” and proposing some sort of additional amorphous cuts to quell a hardliner uprising, McCarthy doubled down, raising the possibility that this next step commission could look into gutting Social Security and Medicare. Music, in theory, to the ears of a salivating Freedom Caucus.

As my colleague Josh Marshall spelled out earlier, there is one very loud voice that is notably absent from this conversation.

Donald Trump has remained largely silent on the debt ceiling ever since the Biden White House and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) settled a deal over the weekend to ransom the debt ceiling hostage in exchange for some GOP legislative priorities, most notably work requirements for SNAP recipients.