Feehery: Kevin McCarthy and the art of the deal

Donald Trump’s “Art of the Deal” became a No. 1 bestseller and helped solidify the real estate developer as a business icon and the ultimate dealmaker.  

In the book, which was penned by the now-bitter critic of Mr. Trump, Tony Schwartz, the future president offered advice that seemed to Trumpian enough: Dream big, always be bold and controversial, trust your gut, talk first about your strengths and then focus on your opponent’s weaknesses. Also, he recommended, don’t endlessly debate negative criticism, but instead focus attention on something positive. All of this advice sounds like it came straight from Trump.  

Two of the book’s pieces of advice are relevant when it comes to the budget deal that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Joe Biden, concluded over the weekend. The first is to focus on the pennies, because they eventually become dollars. In government spending terms, that means to focus on the billions, because they eventually become trillions. 

The second piece of advice is that if you can’t get a good deal, be patient and wait for the next one.  

Getting good deals in business is different from getting a half-way decent compromise in government. And the truth is, when it comes to issues like the debt limit, you can only be so patient before you run out of time. 

Neither hard-right Republicans nor hard-left Democrats are supposed to be happy with the final deal reached by the Speaker and the president. In my 35 years in Washington, I have rarely seen the extremes pleased by the final product of any bill.

But that doesn’t mean that conservatives shouldn’t be pleased with how McCarthy and his team fared in a debt-ceiling battle that almost never goes the way that Republicans like. Mr. Art of the Deal himself saw no advantage in fighting a losing debt limit negotiation, extending it three times in his four years in the White House.

McCarthy was successful because he had a good strategy and he stuck with it. He had things in his package that he was happy to give away (extending the debt limit only for a year, repealing all of Biden’s energy giveaways) and things he really needed included (budget caps, permitting reform and welfare-work requirements). He got what he needed, and he negotiated away the stuff that he didn’t.  

He also played the media game better than any Republican leader I have seen in my time in Washington. He was endlessly accessible. He spoke in coherent sentences. He made common-sense asks. And like Trump, he focused first on his strengths (the fact that he had already passed a debt-ceiling bill and was willing to compromise) and then on his opponent’s weaknesses (Biden’s reluctance to negotiate and then his unpopular positions on spending and energy production).

This is the first time in my memory that Republicans had a significant polling advantage going into a debt-limit negotiation.  

McCarthy’s strengths shone even brighter in contrast to Biden’s glaring insufficiencies. Hiding from the media might have worked during his election campaign, but it certainly didn’t work during this budget fight. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is neither serious nor capable of convincing anybody of anything. And the president’s allies on the Hill had no juice with the media because they weren’t in the room. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies (D-N.Y.) could only say, at the end of the day, whatever, let’s just pass this thing.  

Now there is a chance that House Republicans decide not to follow their leader and rebel against a deal that is better than most but still not perfect. They did that during the budget summit days with George H.W. Bush in 1990, and again during the Troubled Asset Relief Program vote following the financial crisis, during the end of George W. Bush’s presidency. But in the aftermath of those two failures, Democrats were able to pass significantly worse deals. The ensuing chaos sank Republican chances in the elections of 1992 and 2008. 

It’s not clear whether Trump will endorse this debt-limit deal or not. He is always looking out for number one, and being loyal to McCarthy is not in his DNA. But the former president should secretly appreciate the hard work the Speaker put into this deal. It was artful, if not perfect, and that’s all any Republican could hope for.

John Feehery, a partner at EFB Advocacy, blogs at thefeeherytheory.com. He served as spokesman to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), as communications director to former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and as a speechwriter to former House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.).