House Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy are reportedly divided on how to respond as “moderate” House Republicans are circulating a discharge petition to force a vote on immigration legislation, including protections for Dreamers. The two men are allies and are keeping the disagreement private, but they face different pressures: between looking good in the history books and maintaining personal power right now.
Ryan, getting ready to retire, wants to be the guy who goes down in history as having settled the issue, while McCarthy, getting ready to step into Ryan’s shoes as speaker, knows he can’t afford to anger the extremists in the House Republican caucus before he’s even officially voted in. So that tells you something about today’s Republican Party. Ryan isn’t willing to go against Donald Trump—heaven forbid!—but he’s pushed Trump to consider re-opening negotiations for a bipartisan immigration deal.
McCarthy, notably, hasn’t been trying to change Trump’s mind — even though the California Republican is tight with the president. That’s probably because McCarthy simply isn’t interested. Asked briefly on Thursday about the possibility of a bipartisan DACA deal this year, he said, “I don’t see a path.”
Ryan, by contrast, told reporters last week that “I want to fix this problem ... I would like to have an immigration vote on the floor before the midterms.”
McCarthy doesn’t just not see a path. In a closed-door House Republican meeting on Wednesday, he said that “If you want to depress [GOP voter] intensity, this is the No. 1 way to do it.”
There’s a reason the difference of opinion between Ryan and McCarthy isn’t going to surface too publicly, though: Trump doesn’t want a deal, and that matters more to Ryan than his own legacy. The question is what will happen if or when the discharge petition gets enough signatures to force a vote.