The deadline for doing something about the debt ceiling is approaching, at most a couple of months away. Joe Biden hasn’t had a single meeting or phone call with Kevin McCarthy on the subject, so there have presumably been no serious negotiations. This has left embattled New York congressman George Santos in an unusual position. While it might not seem obvious at first glance, McCarthy has been working up his own debt ceiling plan. With the House so closely divided, he needs every Republican vote he can wrangle and he can’t lose more than four. There have already been a couple of Freedom Caucus members saying that they will never vote to increase the debt limit by one penny. Santos must be aware of all this because he recently came out and said he was “solidly against” McCarthy’s plan. So is he looking to force the Speaker to make a deal with him? (Daily Beast)

Rep. George Santos (R-NY) is running for re-election—a move that’s been met with literal laughs from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and silence from Republican campaign arms. But in a narrowly divided chamber where every vote counts, Santos may get to show McCarthy who gets the last word and, ultimately, the last laugh.

In totally separate, not-at-all related news to his campaign woes, Santos says he is “solidly” against McCarthy’s debt ceiling plan.

With McCarthy only able to lose four GOP votes—and a couple Republicans already suggesting they’ll never vote to increase the debt limit—McCarthy can hardly afford to lose Santos.

Of course, we don’t know if Santos is really “solidly against” McCarthy’s plan because how can you know when he’s telling the truth about anything? Let’s assume for a moment that this is an actual negotiation ploy, though. What could he want from the Speaker and what might McCarthy be willing or even able to give him?

We already know that Santos was left out of McCarthy’s New York congressional fundraising club. But even that would probably be a seriously big ask for McCarthy. He not only left Santos off the list but laughed when asked if he would support him. He’s openly shopping around for possible primary contenders for Santos’ seat, so it would look like a massive cave if turned around and started funneling money to him.

What else could there be, though? McCarthy can’t simply call an end to the Ethics Committee’s investigations into Santos and I am extremely doubtful that he would if he could. Similarly, he can’t really stop the probe into his potential campaign finance violations. Could he offer him a committee seat after asking him to not have any such seats? That would look like groveling.

The one thing Kevin McCarthy could conceivably do might be to make a backroom promise to not schedule a vote on Santos’ eviction if the investigations come up with some really dark news but it falls short of actually breaking campaign finance laws. That might convince Santos that he has enough breathing room to try to get his nonsensical campaign back into gear.

Of course, if George Santos is trying to execute this type of leverage against Kevin McCarthy, he really needs to make sure he’s thought this through. The old saying about taking a shot at the king comes to mind. You’d best not miss because if there’s one person in the House that you don’t want as an enemy, it’s the Speaker, particularly when they’re from your own party.