Centrist Dems are plotting a save-McCarthy strategy for the debt fight

Kevin McCarthy faces a clear challenge as he tries to strike a debt limit deal: Any compromise he makes with President Joe Biden risks sparking a conservative rebellion aimed at ending his speakership.

But some Democrats have a plan to spare him.

A small group of moderate Democratic lawmakers has quietly reassured its House GOP counterparts that it can help protect McCarthy’s gavel if his right flank revolts over a debt agreement, according to two people familiar with the discussions. If conservatives responded to a McCarthy-Biden deal by forcing a full House vote on ousting the California Republican, Democrats say they have enough members to help block it — keeping him in power.

“We’ll protect him if he does the right thing,” said one of the House Democrats involved in the talks, who requested anonymity because of the ongoing debt negotiations. That Democrat added that McCarthy himself has been briefed on the discussions.

It’s a polarizing strategy for those centrists to entertain in private with other Democrats, let alone admit to planning to deploy. And senior Republicans dismiss the likelihood the gambit would come to pass. That’s because it’s not clear that conservatives would try to depose the speaker even if he edges away from the position he’s staked out on the debt limit — and should they try to, Republicans from McCarthy’s camp on down insist there can be no Democratic bailout.

“The Speaker has never heard of this garbage, has zero interest in it, and thinks Democrats would be better off focusing on doing the jobs they were elected to do,” McCarthy spokesperson Mark Bednar said in a statement.

When some Democrats floated a similar offer to then-Speaker John Boehner in 2013 during a similar fiscal fight within the GOP, he later decided to resign rather than lean on his opponents to keep the gavel.

However, it’s potential insurance for McCarthy — and a sign of the growing sense of desperation on the Hill — as the White House and congressional leaders race toward a deal to avert an economy-rattling debt crisis in the coming weeks. Those who revealed the conversations on condition of anonymity declined to name who’s leading them, but chatter about the protect-McCarthy idea is growing across the Democratic caucus.

And it’s perhaps loudest in the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus.

Democrats in the Problem Solvers, which has a reputation for attempting to back-channel during high-level talks, are specifically looking to counterbalance the influence of the roughly 40 ultraconservative Republicans in the Freedom Caucus with their own members. The group includes 32 Democrats; not all of them are involved in the talks about backing McCarthy on a so-called “motion to vacate” the speakership, but their numbers are nearly enough to neuter the threat from the right.

Members of the Problem Solvers have privately discussed the idea for months, though conversations have become less theoretical as debt talks advanced in recent days, according to both people involved in the conversations.

Even outside of that moderate group, however, senior Democrats are also floating the protect-McCarthy idea — even raising it to party leaders, according to three other people familiar with those conversations. And they said some Democrats have suggested to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that he use it as leverage over the speaker in the debt negotiations.

Jeffries insisted that any game-planning for a potential GOP move to topple McCarthy should play no part in the debt debate. “No, I don’t think that the two are connected at all,” he said in a brief interview.

And Republicans are already rejecting the notion of a Democratic salvage mission for McCarthy should he and Biden ink a pact that alienates conservatives.

“We’re not talking about all that stuff. … Republicans remain united. We’re not going to negotiate against ourselves,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said.

But behind the scenes, a growing number of rank-and-file Democrats are speculating about how to defuse possible conservative backlash to a possible deal as they’ve begun to map out a coalition to pass a debt agreement, should Biden and McCarthy reach one.

The path to 218 votes in the House even emerged as the main topic of a special Democratic meeting last week, when Jeffries and his leadership team met with other senior members from all corners of the caucus to discuss the debt crisis, according to two people close to the discussions.

“What I’ve said over and over in the last few days is that the votes for this are going to come from the middle, … which then raises the obvious question, the motion to vacate,” said Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.), who chairs the centrist New Democrat Coalition.

Kuster recommended a party conversation over how to handle the possibility. If Democrats help the right vent its fury by yanking McCarthy’s gavel, she added, “Then what? You get [Majority Leader Steve] Scalise. The politics don’t really change.”

Like Kuster, other Democrats said they weren’t ruling out aiding McCarthy to protect a future deal.

“I would vote to do what’s best for this country and I’ll leave it at that,” Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.) said.

“That’s a question that should be on a philosophy exam. And the answer is, I don’t know. Depends on the circumstances,” said swing-seat Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.).

As talks between top Republicans and Democrats drag closer to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s early-June projected deadline, some lawmakers have also begun to plan for what happens if the two sides can’t reach a deal.

If that happens, Democrats say they’d likely try to force their own debt solution to the floor using a procedural escape valve of sorts that’s known as a discharge petition. It’s highly unlikely that they could enlist enough GOP backers to get to a majority of the House, unlocking the full potential of that tool, but Democratic leaders can start mobilizing for signatures for that move as soon as Wednesday.

Whether they’ll do so depends on the outcome of Tuesday’s White House meeting, according to two separate people familiar with the conversations.

So for the moment, Democrats are left with few obvious maneuvers to block and tackle for a debt deal aside from their bid to protect the speaker. If a member of McCarthy’s own party did trigger a vote of no confidence, Democrats wouldn’t even need to vote for the California Republican himself — instead, they’d just need to block it from coming up.

Some Democrats are openly disinterested in the prospect.

“That’s so far down the line right now, in terms of what might actually happen. At the end of the day, the solution is probably going to come from the Senate when we get really close to defaulting,” Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said. Still, she added of McCarthy: “I’m not sure who else could run that conference.”

And Democratic centrists who want to signal they’d back McCarthy, if he agrees to a debt plan they agree with, insisted there would be enough votes on their side to help the speaker stay in power.

“If he showed some courage to bring something to the floor that would result in a motion to vacate, we would be there to keep him in the seat,” said a second centrist involved in the internal discussions.

Even so, that Democrat acknowledged that a speaker propped up with the votes of his opponents would be committing “a slower suicide.”

“I don’t think McCarthy’s the kind of guy who wants this to be his kind of legacy.”

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.