With His George Santos Meeting, Kevin McCarthy Snuck In A Twofer

It only took three weeks, but Howdy Doody Speaker Kevin McCarthy finally got around to having his one-on-one pow-wow with terminal bad boy and 24/7 embarrassment George Santos. Helpful Hint. For future reference, you now know what it takes to finally humiliate Kreepy Kevin into action. Three solid weeks of hectoring questions and personal humiliation.

When they emerged from the meeting, McCarthy was unusually quiet and reserved, preferring to leave the proclamation to the sacrificial lamb. And in making his proclamation, Santos did it with his usual flair and style, mainly unadulterated bullshit. Santos announced that he was voluntarily stepping down from his two piss ant committee posts so as to not be a distraction to what the committees were trying to accomplish. Then came the bullshit, laid on with a trowel. Santos said that he would resume his duties once the investigations are over, and my name is cleared. When a reporter asked if McCarthy had ordered, or suggested that Santos step back, Santos had a toddler tantrum, The decision was mine and mine alone. Nobody tells me what decisions to make except me! Right. Just make sure you keep that attitude when you’re modeling an orange jumpsuit.

But I have to give McCarthy credit, when the chips were down, he got the job done, and as cleanly as possible. McCarthy went into this meeting with two serious problems. The first was Santos himself. McCarthy has been getting non stop shit from the moderate caucus for putting a national embarrassment like Santos on committees in the first place. And remember, A single member of the House can call for a vote of no confidence. Getting Santos to step back takes that heat off of McCarthy, without making him look weak and vacillating.

The second issue is a self inflicted gunshot wound. Part of his dirty, backroom dealing to get the Speaker’s gavel was that he would move to remove Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar from her foreign relations committee spot. To do this, he has to call a motion  to the floor, and get 218 votes. And right now he doesn’t have them. There are several moderate GOP members who don’t want to be seen as engaging in petty retaliation politics when they should be getting things done. The fact that he hasn’t called the vote yet tells me he doesn’t have the votes sewn up yet. Nothing would be worse for him than failing to make good on his promise.

Here comes the Santos factor again. According to House rules, any member can bring a seconded motion to the floor to remove a House member from his or her committee assignments. And if McCarthy called the motion to remove Omar from her assignment, and it worked, the next thing the Democrats would do would be to call for a motion to strip Santos of his assignments. And with the current mood of House GOP moderates, it would likely pass, another embarrassment for McCarthy. Getting Santos to voluntarily step back, McCarthy takes that punitive option off of the table for the Democrats.

Let’s be clear, this is by no means over. Like Traitor Tot Santos just can’t stay away from the spotlight or shut his mouth. And with the local, state, and federal investigations just kicking into high gear, there will be plenty of outside information to keep Santos heat on McCarthy and the GOP. But at least in this case, McCarthy took lemons, water, ice and sugar, and made lemonade. And that’s the best he could do here.