But as things usually go with the Freedom Caucus, the whole thing kicked off Wednesday afternoon with a literal shouting match on the House floor. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), leader of the maniacs, confronted House Speaker Paul Ryan on the floor during an unrelated vote, accusing Ryan of doing a bait-and-switch with conservative bills and lying to Meadows about it, and saying that two of the provisions he wanted in the compromise bill were left out.
Ryan has apparently given in and told Meadows the compromise bill—the one that's supposed to bring in the moderates—will have his provisions. Meanwhile, the moderates are completely out of the loop and have no idea what Ryan and Meadows are getting into the bill. Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA), who has been leading the moderate faction in this fight, "told Chuck Todd on MTP Daily that 'it is unbeknownst to him' what the Freedom Caucus wants. Moreover, he said that everything that the conservative caucus wanted was included in the final compromise bill text."
Adding to the chaos, a drafting error brought the House Rules Committee into an emergency session late Wednesday night. One of the bills would have given Trump $125 billion for his border wall instead of the agreed upon $25 billion. Rules set up a procedural vote to fix it for Thursday morning that is likely to kick off the day of debate and fighting, the result of which is probably going to be abject failure.
What a swath of conservative Republicans—who don't trust Ryan and think they're being cheated, as usual—want now is "to make sure the President is very visible in his support for both bills this week," as Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC) from the other conservative wing, the Republican Study Committee puts it. "They want to see it constantly as we move forward."
