Kevin McCarthy's major weakness exposed after budget battle with his own caucus: analyst

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's win after getting a slim margin of his caucus to pass his budget bill Wednesday may not only be short-lived – with the Democratic-controlled Senate expected to shoot it down quickly – but it also exposed how fragile the California Republican's speakership continues to be since was handed the speaker's gavel, according to an expert.

CNN political analyst Stephen Collinson said the horse-trading and concessions McCarthy had to make to appease voting members and the rest of the GOP leadership demonstrated how easily he can be held hostage by his own caucus.

Calling it the first "tough test" since McCarthy assumed speakership, the analyst stated that a failure to come up with a budget his caucus could agree upon would have "further dented McCarthy’s speakership after a farcical 15 rounds of voting that the Californian needed to win his dream job."

But to win passage of the bill, the speaker had to make major concessions that send a signal to his fellow Republicans "that holdout lawmakers can extract big giveaways in return for their votes."

"McCarthy’s position as speaker, already weak after he offered multiple concessions to hardliners to win the gavel, was further eroded after GOP leaders ruled out any changes to the debt ceiling bill and then changed it," the CNN analyst wrote.

"But his victory may be short-lived. The drama on the House floor has done nothing to solve the looming debt ceiling crisis. In fact, it’s probably made it worse."

You can read more here.