The House passed its landmark Fiscal Responsibility Act on Wednesday night to raise the debt ceiling ahead of a looming default deadline, and members of both parties are already taking victory laps to position themselves as the sole winner of the fight.
The bill passed in a 314-117 vote after weeks of grueling negotiations between the White House and Republicans, followed by a massive whip effort by Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to get enough members on board to pass the bill through the lower chamber. Not long after, McCarthy and other GOP leaders released a memo to Republicans detailing how the party won the communications battle over the debt ceiling.
EVERY HOUSE MEMBER WHO VOTED AGAINST PASSING THE DEBT CEILING BILL
“Despite being consistently underestimated by the mainstream media, House Republicans won every week of this long messaging battle since January,” House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) wrote in the memo obtained by the Washington Examiner. “I have no doubt that the mainstream media will continue to underestimate our Republican Majority, but the House Republican Conference will continue to work with every Member to communicate our policy agenda and significant legislative results to the American people to save our country.”
The memo laid out six ways in which Republican leaders say they dominated the debt ceiling conversation by crafting a unified message. This included providing early education of the bill, tying President Joe Biden and Democrats to a possible default, touting the passage of the Limit, Save, Grow Act while highlighting lack of movement in the Senate, as well as coaching members on how to talk publicly about the debt ceiling.
But Democratic leaders are also taking credit for the deal passing, arguing it was their votes that helped push the bill past the finish line.
“The American people are concerned with responsible members of Congress preventing a dangerous default, supporting the tremendous leadership of President Biden, and stopping extreme MAGA Republicans from crashing the economy,” Jeffries said on Wednesday. “That’s exactly what House Democrats did today and bailed out the majority from their own extremism.”
Rank-and-file Democrats touted the bill’s passage as a win for their own party shortly after the vote, with some suggesting it came at the expense of the Republican majority.
“Now we are allowed to say it: We rolled them,” Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) told Bloomberg.
That sentiment has angered several Republicans — especially after Democrats helped push the bill through a procedural hurdle on Wednesday afternoon, as some 52 members of their caucus voted to advance the bill after 29 Republicans opposed it. The crossover votes handed McCarthy a win, teeing up its final passage, but it also angered the hard-line conservatives who say it raises questions about the speaker's loyalty to his own conference.
“This just shows what the bill is really made of; it’s chock full of Democrat priorities — not Republican values or wins for the American people,” Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) told the Washington Examiner. “Democrats clearly knew that this debt ceiling deal greenlights infinite spending to advance their radical agenda, which is why they willingly helped drag the rule over the finish line.”
That anger was stoked further when more Democrats than Republicans ultimately supported the bill in the final vote. That math could come back to haunt McCarthy, as there is already some rumbling among conservatives on the House Freedom Caucus to consider a motion to vacate, a GOP source told the Washington Examiner.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Meanwhile, McCarthy has repeatedly brushed off the possibility of his ouster, insisting he got the best deal possible under a divided government.
“Everybody has the ability to do what they want,” he said on Wednesday. “But if you think I’m going to wake up in the morning and ever be worried about that? Doesn’t bother me.”