“It took less than 72 hours to demonstrate how miserable Kevin McCarthy could be if he fulfills his dream of becoming speaker of the House in 2023. Late Friday night, 13 House Republicans defied the GOP minority leader, and bailed out President Joe Biden and Democrats by getting a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill over the finish line. Then, on Monday, one of McCarthy’s most extreme members – Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona – tweeted out a cartoon depicting him murdering Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and attacking Biden with swords. It prompted Democratic outrage and calls for McCarthy to respond. The GOP leader does indeed face pressure within his own ranks to respond to the events of those 72 hours – and it’s to rebuke the 13 Republicans who voted to fund roads and bridges, not the one who publicly fantasized about chopping a colleague’s head off.”

“In the minds of some of the most pro-Trump Republicans, handing Democrats that win amounts to treachery, far more than anything Gosar did. A group of them is preparing an internal GOP conference resolution to remove these Republicans from their committee assignments, according to an aide involved in the effort. There are questions from both sides of the aisle about what leaders plan to do about Gosar. As one senior GOP aide told The Daily Beast, ‘We would be freaking out if the roles were reversed.’ But most aides feel it’s likely that McCarthy will do nothing, yet again putting Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in the position of weighing whether to issue a partisan rebuke of an opposition member who the GOP decided to protect” – Daily Beast.