Kevin McCarthy's fragile control over the House GOP looks shaky as hardline Republicans go into open rebellion

• Hardline Republicans blocked Speaker McCarthy's attempt to bring bills to the floor.
• The move is seen as payback for McCarthy's deal with Biden last week to raise the debt ceiling.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was forced to send everyone packing on Wednesday evening, after roughly 11 members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus voted down a procedural measure on Tuesday that would have allowed several Republican bills to come to the floor for votes.

The Washington Post reports that dissenting lawmakers are angry over a deal McCarthy struck with President Biden last week to raise the debt ceiling, claiming Republicans "got rolled" in the compromise.

The stalemate resulted in the House adjourning until next Monday and scrapping the remainder of the week's votes.

Lawmakers from both parties expressed frustration with the situation, the Post reported.

"This is, in my opinion, political incontinence on our part. We are wetting ourselves, and we can't do anything about it," Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas told reporters on Wednesday night, per the Post.

McCarthy blamed the conservative rebels for not specifying their demands. "There are a few members who aren't actually in the Freedom Caucus, and I'm not quite sure what they're concerned about," McCarthy said, according to Fox News. "This is the difficulty, some of these members, they don't know what to ask for, there's numerous different things they're frustrated about."

"I don't think anybody understands what the demands are," Rep. Andrew Garbarino told Axios. "It's frustrating with the uncertainty — not knowing what's going on and not knowing what they want."

Axios reported rank-and-file anger from Republicans over the "Dysfunction Caucus" grinding business to a halt. The delays could paint Republicans as unable to govern heading into next year's elections, members said.

Democrats quickly jumped on the rift in the House GOP delegation. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the dissenting Republicans "team chaos, team dysfunction, and team extreme" in a press conference Thursday morning. "This week puts into clear focus the choices that the American people have in front of them in terms of which direction their government will go," Jeffries said.

Because the House GOP won only a narrow majority in 2022, with Republicans currently controlling 222 seats and Democrats holding 212, McCarthy relies on the far-right flank to keep power. In order to win his position as Speaker of the House, McCarthy was forced to strike a deal with Freedom Caucus members in January after 14 failed votes.

As part of the compromise to gain the House Speakership, McCarthy agreed to a change in House rules that allows any single member of the House Republicans to make a motion to vacate, which would immediately trigger a vote to remove McCarthy as speaker. There's no indication any member is currently considering using this, but it's a sword constantly hanging over McCarthy's head as he negotiates with his own party.

McCarthy dismissed concerns about his control of the conference. "It's just a couple days. There's no deadline here," he told reporters, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "I won't give up. I'll get through it." But the stalemate shows the challenges of leading a narrow majority reliant on its most extreme members.