The rebellion in the House Republican conference may have taken a pause for now, but it’s clear that there is no love lost between the two factions.
That was the conclusion one could draw from a closed-door meeting of House Republicans on Tuesday, where Rep Derrick Van Ordern of Wisconsin is reported to have gone on a tirade against a small faction of far-right members who successfully held up the GOP’s legislative agenda last week over their dissatisfaction with Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
The Republican House speaker, not yet even a year into holding the gavel, faces growing resentment from members of the House Freedom Caucus, including Matt Gaetz, over his apparent refusal to seek more extreme concessions from Joe Biden and the Democrats during negotiations to raise the debt ceiling. The compromise legislation that passed both the House and Senate only a short time before the US was due to default on its outstanding obligations was opposed by some on the wings of both parties, though it sailed through with the support of Republicans and Democrats.
Resentment boiled over into full-scale opposition last week as a handful of GOP members, including Mr Gaetz and his fellows Republicans like Chip Roy, blocked legislation from making it to the floor, including a messaging bill that would block the Biden administration from using any federal funds to prohibit or curtail the sale of gas stoves (though no such efforts are underway). On Monday, Mr McCarthy was reported by Politico’s Playbook newsletter to have reached a deal to end the impasse with those lawmakers while promising to include them in the decision-making process.
But that didn’t sit well with Mr Van Ordern, who reportedly went off on his rebellious colleagues Tuesday morning.
Noting, according to CNN, that he “shows up to work every f***ing day” despite his daughter undergoing late-stage cancer treatment, Mr Van Ordern reportedly drew applause from Republicans in the room who shared his frustration.
“He was just frustrated about being up here last week and not legislating any bills on the floor,” another GOP lawmaker told The Hill.
Mr Van Ordern’s office did not immediately return a request for further comment from The Independent.
Mr McCarthy became speaker of the House in January after surviving a process to elect him that took more than a dozen votes and lasted late into the night.
His speakership has ever since been characterised as tenuous thanks to concessions he is reported to have made to conservatives in his own party, including lowering the threshold required to begin the process of his replacement.
