At the end of last week, multiple House Republicans shrugged off questions about the timing of McCarthy’s meeting with Greene and Gosar. It was not because they didn’t detest the duo’s decision to associate with Fuentes, who attended 2017’s “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., has called for the U.S. to remain majority-white and compared Jews killed in concentration camps to cookies in an oven.

On the other hand, some have privately wondered if Democrats’ move to boot Greene and Gosar from committees was designed to create future headaches for Republicans by taking away their major recourse to punish two of their biggest conservative gadflies. A few Republicans privately even credit Speaker Nancy Pelosi — without evidence she acted that purposefully — for a smart political maneuver against Greene and Gosar.

One centrist Republican, who spoke about the flap on the condition of anonymity, lamented how few options the conference has to threaten Greene and Gosar now that Democrats have “fired all our shots” by stripping their panel assignments.

“I want them to shut up. Just stop it. What the hell is she thinking?” this Republican said. “[But] there’s nothing else. What else can Kevin do officially through the conference?”