The promises that conservatives say McCarthy broke

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In today's edition … What we’re watching: A growing Republican field for 2024 … GOP aides appear to have discussed having Kavanaugh's wife play key role in days before final vote … but first …

There doesn't seem to be an immediate effort to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for shepherding through Congress a deal to raise the debt limit that is loathed by many conservatives — but he is feeling pressure from his right flank.

On Sunday, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) said on CNN's "State of the Union" that McCarthy "has a credibility problem" with the House Freedom Caucus over the bill he negotiated with President Biden, who signed it into law Saturday.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told Fox News's Guy Benson last week that he will meet with McCarthy this week to "review" the agreement he made with conservatives in January as he scraped to secure their votes so he could become speaker.

Freedom Caucus members say McCarthy broke several promises he made five months ago.

McCarthy has denied making the latter two promises. He hasn't publicly commented on the first.

Neither McCarthy nor the Freedom Caucus released a list of the deals they struck back in January, so it's hard to tell who's telling the truth.

Meanwhile, Buck had quite the dig against McCarthy on CNN for relying on Democrats to pass the rule on the House floor, a vote usually carried by the majority, setting up last week's passage of the debt limit bill.

ICYMI: Russ Vought, who served as budget director in the Trump administration and now consults Freedom Caucus members on budget matters, told us Thursday that the conservative faction might force McCarthy to gain Democratic support for future rules.

The House will take up the Reins Act this week, a measure that mandates that Congress must approve any executive branch rule that costs more than $100 million.

The Reins Act has little chance of being taken up in the Democratic-controlled Senate, so it may not be the balm for what ails McCarthy's relationship with some conservatives.

The Republican presidential field is set to grow even larger this week.

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie is expected to announce his campaign on Tuesday, with former vice president Mike Pence and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum planning to make their campaigns official on Wednesday.

They’ll join former president Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson in the race, along with the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and the California talk radio host Larry Elder.

Trump was cordial when Scott announced his campaign last month, writing on his social media platform with seeming approval that the race "is rapidly loading up with lots of people."

But Christie, unlike Scott, has attacked Trump unflinchingly in recent months. And Pence's campaign represents a break with Trump that's been building since Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump won the 2016 nomination in part because Republicans failed to coalesce around one non-Trump candidate. He won the New Hampshire primary, for instance, with barely 35 percent of the vote, with his rivals dividing the rest among themselves.

There were 10 Republicans running at this point in the 2016 cycle: Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Rand Paul (Ky.), Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Ted Cruz (Tex.), Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former senator Rick Santorum, former New York governor George Pataki, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson. Seven more — including Trump — joined the race later.

There will be 10 Republicans in the 2024 race by the end of the week — with more potentially on the way. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu has said he’ll decide whether to run by the end of the month, and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez has been weighing a run, too.

Speaking of 2024: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tests the conspiratorial appetite of Democrats, our colleague Michael Scherer reports.

Biden, meanwhile, is hosting European and Midwestern VIPs this week at the White House.

He’ll meet this afternoon with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen before welcoming the Kansas City Chiefs to mark their Super Bowl victory. And he’ll host British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday for a meeting followed by a joint news conference.

Much has been said and written about the contentious confirmation fight over Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court during the summer and fall of 2018.

But recently released documents add additional details about just how nervous the Trump White House and Senate Republicans were about getting the necessary support to confirm Kavanaugh just days before the Oct. 6 floor vote on his nomination.

Days after a high-profile Judiciary Committee hearing in which Christine Blasey Ford described an alleged sexual assault by Kavanaugh while they were in high school, which he adamantly denied in an emotional appearance before the panel, aides appeared to privately discuss the idea of bringing in a character witness to win the votes of wavering senators: Kavanaugh's wife Ashley.

The meeting appears to have never happened. But here's what we learned about the back and forth over the issue during the tense few days before the Senate confirmation vote.

Following the high-profile Sept. 27 hearing where both Ford and Kavanaugh appeared, Mike Davis, Grassley's chief counsel for nominations at the time, emailed then-White House counsel Don McGahn late on the afternoon of Sunday, Sept. 30, proposing an in-person group meeting between Ashley Kavanaugh and Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).

The subject line of the email read: "SCOTUS — Ashley face-to-face meetings with 4 senators on Monday."

Graham was a staunch defender of Kavanaugh, but the other three were seen as possible no votes who could sink his nomination.

Several Trump White House and GOP congressional aides were included on parts of the email thread as well as Brett Talley of the Justice Department.

"Grassley wants this to happen," Davis told them.

Here's what stood out in the email exchange, parts of which were redacted:

One question left unanswered is why the meeting appears to have never took place.

"I don't recall trying to set that up," Davis said in an interview. "But if you have it, I certainly did. I don't think the meeting happened and I don't know why."

Grassley said he didn't recall the discussions about having the meeting and his office said it had no additional information beyond what is in the email exchange. Graham said he couldn't recall whether such a meeting took place, while the three other senators said they never met with Ashley Kavanaugh.

The Supreme Court didn't respond to requests for comment from either of the Kavanaughs. Talley and the former White House aides on the email chain didn't respond to requests for comment. (Ashley Kavanuagh's last name is never referenced in the emails, but it's unclear who else the aides would have been referring to in the context of the emails.)

When asked why such a meeting would have been discussed, Davis said the answer was obvious.

"You have these senators who are on the fence, and they’re concerned about sexual assault allegations," he said. "So, bringing his wife to talk to these senators I think would have been very compelling."

In the end, Collins and Flake voted to confirm Kavanaugh, while Murkowski opposed his ascension to the highest court.

"I believe Brett Kavanaugh's a good man. It just may be that in my view he's not the right man for the court at this time," she said in a floor speech at the time.

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