McConnell Smirks When Asked How He and “Speaker” McCarthy Would Handle Debt Limit Crisis

The GOP is planning to take us back in time, should they regain the House. That makes complete sense, because they sure as hell have no means to take us forward. That would require planning and policies and for this crowd, that’s too tall an order, don’t even go there.

So back in time we’re going. You already know about 1994 and putting lipstick on Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America pig. That’s one stop. Another stop is the year 2011, where the debt limit showdown reached a near crisis point. Hey, it’s good political theater fodder, right? And it should generate some histrionic sound bites for Fox News. Is there anything else that matters to these people? Axios:

Why it matters: How GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) handles a potential standoff should he become House speaker will be a crucial test for which key stakeholders are already privately planning. Current estimates put the deadline for dealing with the fiscal cliff in fall 2023.

Driving the news: The topic has already come up in several private conversations with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — who will play a key facilitating role in debt limit negotiations next year, multiple people familiar with the closed-door discussions tell Axios.

• Remember, McConnell was the one who cut a deal with then-Vice President Biden in 2011 to avoid a default.

• “I expect this will be one of the first conversations McConnell has with McCarthy,” one Senate GOP aide told Axios.

• Asked whether this will indeed be among the first orders of business he’d raise with a Speaker McCarthy, McConnell smirked.

I’m sure he did, for a number of reasons. First, “Speaker” McCarthy isn’t a surety, not even if the GOP does take back the House. McConnell is no fool, he sees the schism in the House and he knows McCarthy can’t lead his way out of a pay toilet. He couldn’t get a grip on Marjorie Taylor Greene, whom McConnell described as “loony” and he couldn’t control Madison Cawthorn either. Nor Lauren Bobert. Say what you will about McConnell, he’s got control of his caucus, that’s a pretty basic tenet of leadership.

McConnell also sees how the crazy cult of MAGA is dividing the House and Jim Jordan might have a shot. Who knows? And again, this is assuming that the GOP takes back the House. So McCarthy is right to smirk at this hypothetical, because hypothetical is exactly what it is. But if the GOP does take back the House, then the debt limit will become an issue, there’s little question of that, no matter who is holding the Speaker’s gavel.

Between the lines: The debt limit turning into a “political football” has become a “pattern in divided government,” particularly with a Democratic president, Neil Bradley, chief policy officer for the U.S. Chamber of Congress, told Axios.

• Rohit Kumar, McConnell’s former deputy chief of staff during the 2011 standoff, described raising the debt limit as “this weird, toxic mix of being really politically unpopular, but really economically necessary.”

• “That’s what always causes me, constantly, so much angst about this issue. The absolute necessity of it juxtaposed with the zero political upside for doing it,” he added.

This is the theater of war where all the action will take place if the GOP does retake the House. Representative Jason Smith (R-MO)told Axios in a phone interview “he thinks Republicans should leverage debt limit negotiations to “reverse” the administration’s “radical” policies — including by sending a bill gutting the Democratic agenda to President Biden’s desk and daring him to reject it.”

I hope for many reasons the Democrats can hold the House, primarily because I don’t want to see revenge politics where the talk runs to impeachment and smearing Hunter Biden, all that madness, but secondarily, the debt ceiling issue could become a real dog fight.

We’ll certainly have an answer in six weeks, now won’t we?