Steve Bannon Predicts Beginning of the End for Kevin McCarthy

Former White House adviser Steve Bannon has a bold prediction for the 118th Congress: Kevin McCarthy's capitulation to Democrats on the raising of the debt ceiling has cemented his early exit as House speaker.

Bannon told Newsweek on Thursday that the Senate's June 1 passing of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 is really a Democratic bill at heart. He pointed to the 165 House Democrats who voted for it and took it over the finish line to be celebrated by leadership—as well as President Joe Biden—as a victory over "extreme voices."

Just 149 House Republicans voted for it. Final negotiations between Biden and McCarthy led to the GOP not getting some of its major asks, including a less-than-desired amount of unspent COVID-19 relief funds given back and less stringent changes to expanded work requirements for programs like Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

"I think [McCarthy's] gonna be gone relatively quickly," Bannon said. "It can't exist like this. He double-crossed people. He lied to people. He had all these press conferences, 'We're gonna hold the line,' and he was already giving it away."

About $1.3 trillion of the savings in the legislation comes from capped non-defense discretionary spending for fiscal years 2024 and 2025. Spending for 2024 will remain around current levels and cannot be raised by more than 1 percent in 2025.

McCarthy has touted other parts as victories, such as getting the Biden administration to move $20 billion in planned funding for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to other non-defense areas and ending the long COVID-era pause on student loan repayments.

The biggest number for Bannon and members of the House Freedom Caucus is $4 trillion. He previously told Newsweek that the deal will add at least that much to the national debt regardless of "marginal, small cuts" agreed to by leadership in both parties.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who touted the leadership of Biden for fending off the House Republicans' "extremism" in negotiations and claimed the final legislation as a Democratic victory, outdueled McCarthy, Bannon said.

Now, enough House Republicans are "holding the floor" to not allow McCarthy to even call procedural votes on potential legislation that would prohibit the banning of gas stoves.

"Right now [McCarthy's] being bled out every day on this, and if these guys seize the floor, they're not going to give it up," he said. "This a forcing function to show that he's actually in partnership with Hakeem Jeffries—that Hakeem Jeffries is actually the majority leader and not [Republican] Steve Scalise."

Scalise, the No. 2 Republican in the House, acknowledged "anger" within his party in an interview Wednesday with Punchbowl News, saying that he didn't have a major role in the Fiscal Responsibility Act negotiations, nor is he unaware of all the promises made by the speaker in January that gave him enough votes to receive the gavel in the first place.

"Fox [News] can't cover that up, that 'this is unity, this is compromise' when people realize this is a Democratic bill now....There's a fantasy out there that [McCarthy] can exist with four Democratic votes, but the base of the Republican Party's not gonna support that," Bannon said, calling Jeffries a tough New York politician.

"These congressmen are gonna go back to their districts and people are gonna crush them. They're gonna sit there and go, 'What are you talking about? We did all this work and Hakeem Jeffries is your partner? Screw you. We're not going to tolerate it.'"

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer has a different perspective.

"House Republicans have been extremely successful as a team for the first five months doing things people never thought possible," Emmer told Newsweek via email. "It's unrealistic to expect there will be no disagreements when there are 222 personalities involved, and we're going to come out the other side even stronger as a team."

While a motion to vacate McCarthy's speakership takes just one vote, Bannon, who is the host of the popular War Room podcast, referred to it as a "blunt force instrument." Instead, he thinks continued opposition to McCarthy will set a precedent that some half of those 149 Republicans in "deep red districts" will turn on him.

"Everything about the deal is awful," he added. "And the key mortal sin you can't ever recover from is making two years uncapped. They technically called a recession for the Eurozone today. China is in a freefall because of American demand. Our economy slowing down. The World Bank just gave a best case with the U.S. giving 1.1 percent growth.

"We're f*****, and one reason we're f***** is this deal. And that was a Republican pushing it. He cannot remain."

Update 06/08/2023, 6:11 p.m. ET: This story was updated with comment from House Majority Whip Tom Emmer.