Why Kevin McCarthy thinks he’s already won

A mini group of longtime Kevin McCarthy aides who decamped downtown to lobby are abruptly immoderate of nan astir influential and sought-after group successful Washington. They stay intensely loyal to nan caller speaker and service arsenic important sources of penetration into his reasoning and strategy.

Ben Howard, now astatine nan Duberstein Group, was McCarthy’s level director. He was pinch him done each of nan fraught moments of nan John Boehner era, including successful 2015 erstwhile Boehner retired and McCarthy mislaid retired connected securing his job. Howard saw up adjacent really driven McCarthy was to get a 2nd changeable astatine becoming speaker.

“I utilized to beryllium successful nan agency pinch Kevin,” Howard told Ryan Lizza, big of Playbook Deep Dive. “We would dream astir this day. We would dream astir it.”

But Howard has a bony to pick. He doesn’t for illustration nan measurement that everyone is talking astir his aged boss. The accepted contented astir nan caller speaker is that he gave up everything to unafraid nan occupation and that he’s 1 misstep distant from losing it if he angers his restive Freedom Caucus colleagues.

According to Howard, that spot of Washington C.W. is wrong.

For this week’s section of nan Playbook Deep Dive podcast, Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza talked to Howard successful his Penn Quarter agency to understand nan position from McCarthy world. They had a wide-ranging speech astir nan authorities of nan House GOP, nan effect of nan rules changes McCarthy agreed to successful bid to triumph nan gavel, nan indebtedness limit faceoff, and McCarthy’s narration pinch President Biden.

Oh, and besides astir that clip Howard was chewed retired by GOP members for ruining nan astir celebrated section of Game of Thrones.