Kevin McCarthy Confirms House Extremists Have Him Wrapped Around Their Finger

Kevin McCarthy caved to the far-right flank of his conference Thursday, giving hardliners their way on several extreme amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act that could ultimately doom the annual Pentagon bill in a full House vote. “It’s really sad that the Republican Party doesn’t understand that diversity matters,” Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told the Washington Post, confirming that he would vote no on the legislation he helped draft. “They are basically dismissing the LGBTQ community and women and people of color.”

Right-wingers had been threatening to block the NDAA—an $886 billion defense package seen in Washington as a must-pass—unless it targeted what they call “woke” military policies under President Joe Biden, setting up another potential standoff with the House speaker, who has been aiming to get the legislation through the House by the end of this week. In capitulating, he may have avoided—for now—another bruising political fight with the right, which can, under a key concession he made to get the gavel in January, call for a vote on his speakership at any time. But he has also put the bill’s passage in strong doubt, as Democrats lined up against it following the party-line votes Thursday. “I don’t think I’ve ever not voted for an NDAA,” number three Democrat Pete Aguilar told the New York Times after heated debate over the partisan amendments. “I’m a no.”

The House did reject two amendments—put forth by Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz—to end military aid to Ukraine. But Republicans succeeded in attaching amendments that would restrict abortion access and prohibit transgender health care for military members, as well as end diversity and inclusion programs in the military. In arguing for the latter, one Republican—Eli Crane of Arizona—referred to Black people as “colored people”: “The military was never intended to be, you know, inclusive,” Crane said. “Its strength is not its diversity. Its strength is its standards.”

That drew a sharp rebuke from Democrats, who got his words stricken from the record by unanimous consent. “I find it offensive and very inappropriate,” said Representative Joyce Beatty, former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. The words were taken down, but Crane’s amendment still passed 214-210 on Thursday night.

A number of Republicans seemed frustrated that the amendments were allowed to make their way to the floor for votes, aware that it would put the NDAA’s passage at risk. “We should not be taking this fucking vote, man,” Representative Nancy Mace told her staff in a Capitol elevator Thursday, appearing to describe a measure to restrict abortion care as an “asshole amendment.” But Mace would ultimately vote for that very amendment—a sign of just how powerless the supposedly “mainstream” members of the House GOP are to their more extreme colleagues. “House Republicans have turned what should be a meaningful investment in our men and women in uniform into an extreme and reckless legislative joyride,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic Whip Kathleen Clark, and Aguilar, the caucus chair, said in a statement Thursday, criticizing the GOP for allowing “extreme MAGA Republicans” to “hijack” the legislation. “We will vote no on the final passage of this bill.”

It remains to be seen if Republicans will be able to pass their partisan NDAA through the House on their own. But even if they do, it will die in the Democratically-held Senate, potentially setting up a fight between the two chambers. That could put McCarthy right back in the position he sought to avoid when he yielded to the hardliners this week—that is, caught between the demands of his job as speaker and the no-compromise caucus that could imperil that post. “This process is a joke,” Democrat Jim McGovern, a member of the House Rules Committee, said Thursday. “Speaker McCarthy may be the ringleader, but the clowns have taken over the circus.”