McCarthy builds a kitchen Cabinet ahead of debt showdown — without his No. 2, Scalise

After his brutal battle to lead the House, Speaker Kevin McCarthy built two inner circles of advisers: those his conference elected and those he selected.

Lately, McCarthy is relying more on his informal advisers than the ones voted onto his leadership team.

The California Republican is enlisting a stable of close allies to help guide the House GOP on its debt limit strategy, including Reps. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), French Hill (R-Ark.) and Garret Graves (R-La.). It comes amid tension between McCarthy and his No. 2, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, on the eve of the new majority's most perilous political challenge.

Most House Republicans insist publicly that they’re paying no attention to the simmering mistrust between McCarthy and Scalise. But privately, many are watching the duo's dynamic strain under the stress of the debt-limit fight. That’s true even as McCarthy mends fences with the budget chief he'd previously sidelined, Scalise ally Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas).

GOP lawmakers and senior aides say McCarthy and Scalise are friendly in private, and that Scalise is happy at No. 2, where he's focused on policy priorities like energy and education. Yet it’s no secret that Scalise, once seen as waiting in the wings if McCarthy stumbled, is now competing for the speaker’s ear with other confidants on several issues.

The resulting tension is starting to simmer just as McCarthy, like his predecessors John Boehner and Paul Ryan, faces the ultimate test of House Republican loyalty — a debt standoff. And it shows that the rift that opened between McCarthy and some senior Republicans during his grueling bid for the job hasn't faded in the months since.

"People say there's goldfish memory: 30 seconds, and everything's forgotten," said Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.), one of the 20 conservative holdouts who delayed McCarthy’s ascension to speaker. "But I'm not sure that’s always true.”

It’s not uncommon for legislative leaders to lean on an unofficial circle of friendly colleagues. But any sign of daylight within McCarthy's leadership team was bound to draw scrutiny after what he endured to secure the speakership — and his narrow margin for error to keep it.

McCarthy's relationship with Scalise isn't the only one taxed by the debt drama. As he moved closer to releasing a bill designed to unite his members, the speaker put distance between himself and Arrington. Allies of McCarthy had seen Arrington as speaking out of turn about the conference's approach to the high-stakes debt-limit talks.

But since then, McCarthy has quietly worked to repair ties with Arrington — even putting the Budget Committee chair's name on the GOP’s opening bid in the debt talks — in what members saw as an effort to show unity to the rank and file.

Arrington said in an interview that McCarthy called him hours before releasing the House GOP's debt plan and asked if he would add his name as lead sponsor.

“I said, 'If I can help the conference succeed in this endeavor, which I think is critical for our country's future, I'm in'," the Texan recalled.

Still, some members are keeping a close eye on McCarthy and Scalise as the House hurtles toward a likely vote next week on the speaker's debt plan. The two meet one-on-one at least weekly, but suspicion about a rift between them flared again heading into January's speakership race, as McCarthy worked fiercely to win over his skeptics, while behind closed doors his allies fumed that Scalise wasn't boosting him enough.

“Steve could have said the simple thing in the press and refused to do so," one House Republican allied with McCarthy said, insisting on anonymity to speak freely about Scalise's handling of the speakership fight. "I think there’s a level of distrust between the two members that exists, sure. But the staffs are working well together and that’s all it really needs for this [debt ceiling] thing.”

Scalise made several public statements supporting McCarthy for speaker in the runup to the balloting and nominated the Californian on the floor. And Scalise allies are defending his efforts on steering other high-profile GOP measures to passage in recent weeks, including a marquee energy bill and a "parents' bill of rights."

Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), a member of the elected leadership team, said Scalise was instrumental in smoothing over hiccups on the parents' bill as language in the text threatened to trigger a damaging jailbreak: “It went from a dead bill to something we were able to fix in 30 to 45 minutes."

In the first months of the new majority, however, McCarthy became increasingly reliant on his own sounding boards, like McHenry, Hill, Graves and others. They serve as McCarthy's shadow Cabinet of sorts, offering perhaps the most precious commodity in Washington: loyalty.

Graves and McHenry, in particular, seem to be involved in most of the GOP’s tactical decisions these days. Graves is running point on McCarthy’s debt conversations across the conference, after helping to shepherd a major energy bill and internal talks about earmark rules. McHenry has been pulled in on multiple issues that range beyond his financial expertise.

Their fellow House Republicans note that McCarthy's unelected lieutenants, in addition to being viewed as strong on policy, are also not as threatening as Scalise because they're not seen as angling for his job.

“It's natural for folks to fall back with people they trust, and people who aren't afraid to tell them ‘that's a bad idea,’” Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio) said.

It's a practice that past speakers have also engaged in, as former Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) pointed out.

“Having close friends be trusted advisers outside of elected leadership is not uncommon,” said Davis, a close McCarthy ally. “Boehner had members like Tom Latham and Dave Joyce, among others. Paul Ryan had Jim Sensenbrenner and Sean Duffy, too. Kevin is doing the same thing with trusted folks that were essential in helping him win the speaker's gavel.”

But that practice has a way of chafing the members left on the outskirts of the conversation — such as those elected to leadership or committee chair positions. In Scalise's case, he took pains to project alignment with McCarthy in the run-up to November's midterms that became harder to maintain after the House GOP's hopes of a commanding victory faded to a narrow, four-seat majority.

That small margin of control, of course, made it much harder for McCarthy to win the speakership earlier this year. Throughout the 15 ballots he needed to win, McCarthy allies argue Scalise should’ve had more of a hands-on approach, rather than a hands off, which triggered old suspicions that the Louisianan was lying in wait for his opening to rise, feelings of which have percolated throughout the duo's first 100 days in charge of the House.

Allies in both camps note that the majority leader is keeping his head down and focused on policy — including putting out fires in another fraught intraparty debate: immigration policy. The Louisianan has helped broker conversations between holdouts like Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) and his Lone Star State rival, GOP Rep. Chip Roy. But a New York Times report earlier this month that highlighted his frayed relationship with McCarthy only made things worse.

“It was a little weird. I don’t think that was one of the best moments, but there have been many good moments,” Bishop acknowledged.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a purple-district incumbent and McCarthy ally, said he called the speaker's office to raise concerns about the "undermining" that he perceived in the Times report. Bacon added that he's "seen no evidence" of bad blood between the "very collegial" speaker and majority leader.

In a potential win for McCarthy, some of his biggest skeptics during the speakership skirmish appear to be tuning out what's happening at the top. About a half-dozen members of the House Freedom Caucus interviewed for this story largely shrugged off the leadership drama as separate from their world — though some were displeased and defensive about the sidelining of Arrington, a fellow conservative albeit not a member of the group.

The Freedom Caucus' bigger focus right now is eking all the wins they can get from the debt deal, which leadership needs the right flank on board for as much as possible.

Arrington, for his part, appears back in the fray on the debt talks. He attended a closed-door meeting Thursday afternoon as a cross-section of the conference demanded changes to the leadership-crafted measure's proposed Medicaid work requirements, while shrugging off any questions about discord.

Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), one of the conference's more respected senior members, observed that Boehner once likened the speakership, during tough internal battles to corralling "jumping frogs in the wheelbarrow."

"Keeping all the jumping frogs together, at some snapshot in time when we're voting, is going to be the test of leadership," Womack said.

Jennifer Scholtes, Jordain Carney and Caitlin Emma contributed to this report.