Mysterious document that may not even exist is causing 'a trust problem' for House GOP: report

On Thursday, POLITICO reported that House Republicans are in conflict with each other over a 3-page document supposedly outlining the back-room deal cut between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and an insurgent group who tried to block him, mostly from the ultra-right Freedom Caucus — and that furthermore, the document might not even exist at all.

"Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his GOP allies insist that no back-room promises were made to land his gavel after 15 frenetic ballots, that no plum committee spots, precise spending cuts, or debt limit strategy were guaranteed in a quid pro quo," reported Sarah Ferris and Olivia Beavers. "Agreements and goals were reached with conservatives who initially withheld their votes from the speaker, GOP leaders say, but nothing was formalized in writing."

"As Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio), who leads the Republican Governance Group, put it: 'There’s all these people talking about a document that doesn’t exist,'" said the report. "But the debate surrounding the document has exposed a trust problem days into McCarthy’s speakership. There’s plenty of paper flying around summarizing handshake deals between the speaker and his members, and some GOP lawmakers have muddled their leaders’ message by talking candidly about what they secured in exchange for their speaker votes."

Owing to the razor-thin margin of the Republicans' House majority and faction-fighting between leadership and other lawmakers, McCarthy was the first House Speaker to be rejected on the first ballot since 1923, and the first to require more than nine ballots since the 1800s.

Many of the roughly 20 Republicans who sought to block him demanded specific rule changes to empower them, like extra seats for the Freedom Caucus on the House Rules Committee and a provision allowing any lawmaker at any time to file a motion to vote on removing McCarthy as Speaker. Others, like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), stated they would refuse to vote for him under any circumstances.

"The situation has grown more complicated this week, as GOP leadership outlined the concessions that it prefers to interpret as agreements and as some House Republicans open up about what they got from last week’s frenetic talks," noted the report. "One McCarthy holdout, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), bluntly told Fox News when asked 'what did you get' that he would join the influential GOP Steering Committee 'as Speaker McCarthy’s designee.' McCarthy also informed members that the House would take its first-ever vote this Congress on a contentious national sales tax bill that Georgia Republicans — including McCarthy dissenter Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) — have pushed for decades."