Come on, man. Hasn’t anyone ever covered a debt-ceiling deal before? Hasn’t anyone covered Washington DC before?

All of the actual drama took place yesterday in the Rules committee and came to an expected end when Thomas Massie provided the majority vote to approve the bill for debate. The rest of this is — and was — political theater, and well-managed political theater at that.

Nevertheless, Politico started out this morning wondering if Kevin McCarthy could score a W, when in fact he already has:

Can McCarthy pull his bargain across the finish line?

The bipartisan debt limit deal cleared its first hurdle, fending off a fizzled rebellion in the House Rules committee, and is now headed for its next test: winning approval in the House.

The package appears to be on track to get the votes needed from both sides of the aisle to clear the House, though around 30 House Republicans went public Tuesday with their intentions to vote against the bill with dozens more saying they remained undecided.

When I wrote on Saturday night that this deal was utterly predictable, I meant the full cycle, all the way through passage. Are there reasons to criticize this debt-ceiling deal? Of course, but just the fact that McCarthy got one at all is a tactical win for the GOP. Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer spent 97 days insisting that negotiations were not just off the table, but akin to dealing with terrorists. McCarthy’s ability to pass a debt-ceiling increase in the House — with cuts that aren’t all that different in scope than those in the deal — forced their hand and resulted in a series of concessions that go entirely in one direction.

As soon as McCarthy forced Biden and Schumer into that humiliating position, the House GOP caucus had two choices. One: accept the tactical win and political humiliation of the president. Or two: Dump the deal and let Republicans bear the brunt of the consequences of the technical default to follow.

They’re choosing Door Number One. Even the pushback is at least partially theater. Thanks to White House pressure on Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader endorsed the deal today and pushed his caucus to support it:

In closed meeting with WH officials this morning, Hakeem Jeffries strongly urged the divided Democratic caucus to back the debt ceiling bill, according to a person in the room. Dem votes will be needed to pass the bill

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 31, 2023

Progressive caucus leader Pramila Jayapal came out in opposition to it, but it’s not clear that all of her caucus will follow her on that point. Moderate Dems want this off the table as quickly as possible, and they don’t want to make Biden and Schumer look any weaker or more ineffective than they already appear in this surrender.

In contrast, House Freedom Caucus members are openly opposing it, and their criticisms are substantive and meaningful. There are certainly points to criticize, although some of those would have applied to the bill they passed, too. Its scope is too limited for the kind of deflection from fiscal insanity that Congress has to take, although the cuts in spending would run to around $2.1 trillion over the next six years if left undisturbed.

But again, this a debt-ceiling negotiation on budget items already passed by Congress. It’s not a budget negotation; it just sets the stage for the next budget negotiation, and on terms more friendly to conservatives. This fight wasn’t going to do much more, especially since it still has to get at least 10 Senate Democrats once it passes the House. That’s why this is a tactical win, because it was a tactical fight to set up the more strategic battle to come in the next budget cycle.

And everyone knows this, even in the Freedom Caucus, which is why there isn’t a groundswell of movement for a motion to vacate the chair. Matt Gaetz defined the trigger for such a challenge to McCarthy’s leadership so low as to be nearly impossible, emphasis mine:

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said on Tuesday that passing a debt deal without a Republican majority in the House would trigger an “immediate” motion to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

“If a majority of Republicans are against a piece of legislation and you use Democrats to pass it, that would immediately be a black letter violation of the deal we had with McCarthy to allow his ascent to the Speakership, and it would likely trigger an immediate motion to vacate,” Gaetz told Newsmax.

“I think Speaker McCarthy knows that,” he added. “That’s why he’s working hard to make sure that he gets, you know, 120, 150, 160 votes. And that’s why those of us who are not supportive of the bill are trying to point out that many of the changes are cosmetic in nature.”

There are 220 House Republicans; a “majority” would be anything at or over 110 of them. There are 53 self-identified members of the Freedom Caucus this session. Even if McCarthy lost all of them, he’d still get 160-plus aye votes on the bill. And if Jeffries can’t deliver 60 of his own 215 members, then Democrats have an even bigger problem on their hands.

That’s why Politico’s attempt at mystery and pretense don’t ring true:

McCarthy’s leadership on the line? The right flank of McCarthy’s conference is furious about how the debt limit deal turned out and at least one member, Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina, has said he’s thinking about calling for snap vote to strip McCarthy of his hard-won speakership. But other conservatives, even those trying to tank the bill, like Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), don’t think McCarthy is truly at risk.

“I don’t think so. He’s genuine in what he said,” Norman said leaving the conference meeting Tuesday night. And asked if he wants more Republicans to join him to vote against the bill, he said: “Good people can disagree.”

This is all theater. These individual members have plenty of room to criticize the deal and oppose it on the floor, because McCarthy really doesn’t need their votes. They can protect their reputations without obstructing the overall resolution to the standoff. You can bet that McCarthy understands that and even supports it, because he wants those Republicans to win re-election next year, too. Jeffries is undoubtedly making similar calculations in his own caucus.

The only real suspense here is what happens in the Senate, but mainly a procedural suspense. The easiest and quickest way to get this finished would be by unanimous consent, but there are members on both sides of the aisle that might be inclined to demand debate. In the end, though, Schumer will have to deliver on Biden’s deal, and I doubt that the final numbers on passage in either chamber will be close at all.