Speaker McCarthy Braces For Next Battle With Freedom Caucus

The House Rules Committee will meet today at 12:00 ET 17:00 BST to mark up the FY2024 National Defence Authorization bill today. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) wants the legislation on the House floor for a vote on Friday but is preparing for another confrontation with the House Freedom Caucus who are threatening to vote down the rule unless the Speaker acquiesces to a raft of amendments on the legislation that passed the House Armed Services committee in a 58-1 vote on June 22.

• Punchbowl News: “...whether conservative GOP Reps. Ralph Norman (S.C.), Chip Roy (Texas) and Thomas Massie (Ky.) will vote for the rule in committee — is still unclear.”
• Politico: “If the trio vote in lockstep in the Rules panel, they could doom the bill – but all three have more than two dozen amendments between them that they’d like to see get floor debate, so we expect the rule to advance.”
• Clashes between Republican House leadership and fiscally conservatives reps has been a theme of this Congress. McCarthy has outperformed expectations in managing the caucus so far and today will be another significant test of his leadership.