While a few Republican lawmakers expressed open frustration online against their 13 colleagues who voted to pass President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill late last week, the anger within the party is far more widespread, multiple lawmakers told the Daily Caller. Members, fueled by a feeling of betrayal after Republican votes gave Biden a win, are also angered at the level of leadership coming from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
“There’s a significant amount of frustration and some degree of anger,” one Republican congressman told the Caller. “There’s a feeling of betrayal from the party … The blame is to be shared with McCarthy and leadership.”
Another Republican congressman, who described McCarthy’s leadership as “weak,” said his explanation for the 13 defectors was that some of these members are retiring and therefore can’t be controlled. This congressman pointed out that the 13 Republican votes ended up being “the difference in Joe Biden winning or losing.”
A GOP aide offered a counter-perspective to the mounting frustration within the party, arguing that the threshold for the vote was much smaller and suggesting there has been misguided focus on the number 13. Several House Republicans were open about their support for the bipartisan infrastructure bill prior to Friday evening’s vote, a note that the aide pointed out.
“The vote shouldn’t be a surprise or a shock to anybody, because all of those people have been public for a long time,” the GOP aide said, adding that some of the votes came from so-called “purple states” and others came from soon-to-be retirees.
Still, frustration within the party is lingering after the vote. The White House, which declined to comment for this story, spent months working all factions of the Democratic Party to try and get members united around Biden’s agenda. Ultimately, six Democrats voted against the bipartisan infrastructure bill, meaning it would have failed without Republican support.
A third member of the Republican conference told the Caller that there’s a “simple answer” for the events on Friday – events that gave Biden a win after a series of crises and allowed him to tout the bill’s bipartisan nature. (RELATED: ‘Finally – Infrastructure Week!’: After Months Of Crises, Biden Gets A Win With GOP Help)
“That was a compete and total failure on Friday night by Republican leadership. There is no other way to put it,” the member said, calling on leadership to “explain why they should continue to lead even the rest of this Congress if they can’t hold those people together.”
WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 06: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a press conference in the State Dinning Room at the White House on November 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. The President is speaking after his Infrastructure bill was finally passed in the House of Representatives after negotiations with lawmakers on Capitol Hill went late into the night. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
Aside from frustration over the 13 Republicans who voted “yes” and leadership’s inability to get the party on the same page, Republicans are also angered by a third aspect: The lack of retribution for those who voted for Biden’s bill.
“Leadership tends to give a pass to some of those who are more left leaning in our party and they knew there were some who were gonna be voting this way … basically leadership is gonna give these people a pass, which I think is a huge mistake,” the first Republican congressman explained.
“If [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi lost 13 members of her caucus, you’d be identifying the bodies based on their dental records,” another remarked, suggesting Pelosi wields a far more forceful position within her party.
While some Republicans speculated that this particular vote would be enough to affect McCarthy’s future within the party, others seemed less sure. One Republican congressman described the party as having developed “a culture of losing” and lamented that this Congress would not press McCarthy in any significant way, despite the frustration.
“I am not so convinced that our conference is going to give leadership a pass,” another one of the Republican lawmakers speculated to the Caller. “We’ll wait and see, but there’s a lot of frustration. A lot of anger, and a lot of people who understand that leadership could have and should have done more to stand in the way of a massive socialist bill being tagged onto the American people.”
Ultimately, as one member of the Republican conference explained, the GOP is sitting at a crossroads that’s been compounded by Friday’s vote.
“There is a growing sense that there needs to be a significant change with respect to the strategic direction of the conference,” the member said. “It’s not enough to be just ‘anti-Biden, anti-Democrat, we win because it’s midterms.’ You can’t assume that. There’s a growing sense, Friday night being front and center, that we need something more than that.”
McCarthy’s office declined to comment on the record for this report.