Biden Supporters Use Fox News to Fight Kevin McCarthy's Debt Ceiling Win

In the lead-up to his bipartisan deal to raise the debt ceiling, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy did everything he could to control the narrative.

Long known as press averse, the California Republican regularly spoke with members of the press throughout negotiations, constantly reiterating the GOP point of view. He blamed the Biden White House for refusing to negotiate in good faith, holding the nation's economy as his hostage while threatening default on the nation's debts in exchange for spending cuts Republicans long said are necessary to stem the national debt. As a result, McCarthy's popularity has grown exponentially, while Biden's has declined after a brief recovery period.

Those in Biden's corner, now, are pushing back.

On Friday, Building Back Better—a pro-Biden advocacy organization—announced it would be rolling out a new advertising campaign giving Biden the credit for brokering the deal while blaming Republicans for "holding the economy hostage" to exact a number of "extreme" concessions from the White House.

Biden, they said, "stood firm and negotiated a bipartisan compromise that protects Social Security and Medicare for seniors, expands benefits for veterans and their families, and preserves Medicaid for those in need.

"Thanks to President Biden, the American people have an economy that works for them," the group claimed.

And they're going straight to conservatives' favorite channel—Fox News—to do it.

In addition to digital advertisements and commercials running on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe,' the organization also announced it would be running advertising on Fox News as well, all backed with what one organization official told Newsweek was a six-figure dollar investment across all available platforms.

"President Biden delivered a bipartisan deal that protected our economy from MAGA Republicans' attempts to throw our economy into a recession, decimate the retirement accounts of millions of Americans, cost us 8 million jobs, and destroyed our nation's credit rating," McKenzie Wilson, Communications Director for Building Back Together, told Newsweek. "In the weeks leading up to the deal, numerous polls showed a majority of Americans supported raising the debt ceiling to avoid default, with support among Republicans increasingly significantly in the six weeks before the deal was reached. The best way to inform the public about the deal President Biden brokered is to reach them where they're at—including Fox News."

But the advertisement also comes at a time of festering discontent inside the Republican ranks over the deal. While the advertisement itself was intended primarily as an opportunity to give Biden a "victory lap" for his accomplishments, a BBB representative told Newsweek it also frames McCarthy's first big win as speaker as an accomplishment that would not have been possible without the work of the Democratic president.

That dynamic—plus the fact numerous Democrats crossed the aisle to support the deal—has raised questions from some within McCarthy's conference who already had concerns about his acumen for the job.

With all said and done, more Democrats (165) voted for the bipartisan compromise on the debt limit than Republicans (149), a sign the terms of the deal McCarthy brokered were largely unacceptable to a majority of the Republican membership—raising questions from some hardline Republicans of whether he'd gone soft on his party's conservative priorities.

Some, like former Trump official Russ Vought, said McCarthy would have a "reckoning" with his conference over the terms of the deal, while others openly contemplated whether McCarthy was too willing to work with Democrats.

Speaking to CNN, Colorado Republican Ken Buck said the fact McCarthy was able to get Democrats to vote for a rule change to get the bill onto the House floor was "a sign of weakness," while others said the fact Democrats helped contribute to the vote's final margin told the entire story.

"Tells you everything you need to know," the House Freedom Caucus tweeted after the vote. "This is a win for Joe Biden: An uncapped debt ceiling increase to finance his agenda to Jan 2025 while leaving every one of his policies intact."

McCarthy, however, stayed on message: his leadership helped push a Democratic president to agree to a massive cut in spending that it, at one point, committed to never accept.

"They said work requirements were a red line. They said they'd never do anything on IRS agents. They didn't want to give up the COVID money. Now, the Democrats are on record doing things they never said they would do," he told CNBC's Squawk Box Monday morning.