Anger over House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's deal with President Biden to raise the debt ceiling is bubbling over, with some conservative members threatening to oust McCarthy as speaker.
"This deal fails — fails completely — and that's why these members and others will be absolutely opposed to the deal and we will do everything in our power to stop it," House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry of Pennsylvania said during a press conference with caucus members Tuesday afternoon.
Texas Rep. Chip Roy, a member of the Freedom Caucus, was even more blunt: "The Republican conference right now has been torn asunder," he said. "Not one Republican should vote for this deal – not one."
Roy argued there was a "breach" in the structure set up by House Republicans after the January vote to elect McCarthy as speaker. He vowed to fight the new compromise bill and, without mentioning the speaker by name, added: "No matter what happens, there is going to be a reckoning."
Under a rule McCarthy agreed to in January as a concession to his conservative critics, any one House member can offer a resolution to remove the House speaker. Biden and McCarthy reach a deal to avoid default. Here's what's in it
The deal McCarthy and Biden reached in principal over the weekend would avoid a historic government debt default by raising the nation's debt ceiling for nearly two years.
The compromise bill, clocking in at 99 pages long, holds nondefense spending for fiscal year 2024 at roughly current levels and will raise it by 1% in 2025. It also sets spending caps for the federal budget, raises the age of food stamp recipients subject to work requirements and claws back funding for the Internal Revenue Service, among other things. But some conservatives in the House criticized the scale of the cuts, arguing they were not fully in line with an earlier partisan bill to raise the debt ceiling that House Republicans passed in April.
One after another, members of the Freedom Caucus at the press conference called on fellow Republicans to oppose the bill.
Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., called the vote on the deal a "career-defining vote for every Republican."
Later, when asked by reporters if a motion to oust McCarthy over the bill is on the table, Bishop was the sole member to raise his hand.
McCarthy, for his part, is projecting confidence.
Asked by reporters whether he thinks his speakership is secure, McCarthy responded: "Yep."
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