The White House is asking for more details about the deal that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy made with the 21 Republican holdouts in order to secure the gavels.
On January 7, McCarthy was elected as the new speaker of the House. The race for the position had been going on for five days.
In order to win over the holdouts, McCarthy agreed to a series of rule changes that would give the House majority leader more power over the House. He also placed several of them on key committees. According to multiple news outlets, McCarthy and the holdouts reached a written agreement, but it has not been made public.
New: President Biden's aides are escalating a fight w/ newly empowered Republicans, with officials Tuesday calling on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to “come clean” about secretive deals he made with hardliners that helped him eventually land the top job.https://t.co/exbUsvu5Z4
— Christopher Cadelago (@ccadelago) January 17, 2023
The White House noted that the deals that McCarthy made with the holdouts were just a glimpse of the secret deals that he made with members of the extreme right-wing group known as the “MAGA” movement. It is now time for McCarthy and the other members of the House to come out and explain what they agreed to in secret.
The Republican majority in the House has been calling out the White House for its lack of transparency regarding the mishandling of classified information by President Joe Biden. Despite this, the president’s top aides and Congressional Democrats have defended the former.
In the 118th Congress, the House passed a set of rules that give a single member of the House the power to force a floor vote on the removal of the speaker. These rules also require that bills only have one subject and establish several new committees.
Some members of the Republican party expressed their concerns about the rules agreement, especially the spending provisions. Although only one member of the House voted against the package, Texas Rep. Tony Gonzalez said that the budget freeze could affect the readiness of the military.
The preceding is a summary of an article that originally appeared on Daily Caller
