House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy outlined some of the concessions that he has agreed to in his campaign for speaker on a Sunday evening conference call — including making it easier to topple the speaker, according to multiple GOP sources on the call. But McCarthy could not say whether he would have the votes for the speakership, even after giving in to some of the right’s most hardline demands.

The California Republican told his members that after weeks of negotiations, he has agreed to a threshold as low as five people to trigger a vote on ousting the speaker at any given time, known as the “motion to vacate” the speaker’s chair, and pitched it as a “compromise.” CNN first reported last week that he was supportive of that threshold.

The concession made would reduce the number of sponsors for a motion to vacate the chair down to five. That’s better than one, but not by much. McCarthy’s opponents insist that they need to restore it to one — the same level before Pelosi changed it in 2018 — in order to impose accountability on McCarthy. McCarthy’s allies see that as a means for nothing but mischief from a small clique of backbenchers who thus far haven’t offered a serious alternative to McCarthy as Speaker, to which we’ll return in a moment.

Now some of McCarthy’s supporters worry that he’s giving away the store. And it doesn’t look as though it did any good anyway:

Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota said he wasn’t happy with the low threshold McCarthy agreed to, though he indicated he would swallow it, but only if it helps McCarthy win the speakership. Other members made clear that the rules package that was negotiated will be off the table if McCarthy’s critics end up tanking his speakership bid.

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida pressed McCarthy on whether this concession on the motion to vacate will win him the 218 votes. But he did not directly answer, though McCarthy said earlier on the call that people were “slowly” moving in the right direction.

However, later in the call, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz — one of the five “hard no” votes for McCarthy — said they would not back McCarthy, despite all the concessions.

Gaetz wouldn’t even commit to supporting McCarthy at the one-sponsor level, which makes all of this ludicrous. Gaetz said he would “consider” it if it was a “serious” offer, which no doubt made the rest of the caucus grind their teeth. There seems to be little bargaining in good faith around McCarthy’s bid at this point, and everyone is basically digging trenches around their own position.

Just how large is the anti-McCarthy caucus at this point? Previous estimates put the number in single digits, but Rep. Bob Good says that as many as 15 could vote against McCarthy on the first ballot:

“He’s part of the swamp cartel,” GOP Rep. Bob Good said of McCarthy and predicts on Fox that 10-15 Republicans will vote against McCarthy tomorrow. He says there will be a new candidate who emerges on the second ballot. “You’ll see that name tomorrow on that second ballot.”

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 2, 2023

Good tells Fox News that the 15 will vote for Andy Biggs, who has no chance at all, as Fox News host Griff Jenkins points out. Good then says that a “true conservative” option will emerge, but Good won’t name him or her:

Jenkins openly scoffs at this, and he should, because this same clique had the opportunity to have this fight weeks ago. Republicans held their internal caucus leadership elections at that time, and McCarthy got 188 votes. No serious challenger came forward at that time to lay out a new, more conservative agenda. The idea that one will drop out of the sky as some sort of conservative Deus ex Machina now is absurd. Republicans have 222 members in the House, all of whom are known quantities, and this mystery candidate’s unwillingness to face the battle head-on makes Good’s proposition even more laughable.

What makes this even more absurd is the idea that a Republican Speaker will change the world in this session. Democrats control the Senate and the White House. That leaves the GOP majority in the House playing goalie; their task will be to block Chuck Schumer’s radical-progressive agenda and to investigate Joe Biden’s incompetent and corrupt administration, and that will be enough. Even if one thinks that McCarthy is too “establishment” to move a “true conservative” legislative agenda (and that remains to be seen), no one’s going to move that kind of agenda to fruition in the 118th Session anyway. The Senate wouldn’t take it up, and even if they did, Biden would veto it.

McCarthy’s main task will be to hold the line on budgeting, ensure that committee chairs hit the ground running on investigations, and hold Biden’s feet to the fire. That’s it. The longer that this stunt continues, the less focus Republicans can force onto those issues and the more that GOP infighting becomes the story for the next two years.

If Good and his clique have a candidate, stand him or her up now and stop using Biggs as a proxy. Let that person undergo the same scrutiny that they want on McCarthy. If they don’t have a candidate or that person is too timid to stand up, then this clique should stop the stunts and get to the real work of this new session of Congress.