After chaotic week, McCarthy faces new battle as House votes on rules package

After five days of chaos and 15 rounds of floor votes, newly elected Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy is set to face an instant challenge on Monday as the House votes on a new rules package.

A handful of establishment Republicans indicated on Sunday they may withhold their support for the rules unless more details of concessions made to ultraconservative lawmakers during a week of torrid negotiations are unveiled.

McCarthy ascended to the speakership late on Friday after winning over support from holdout members of the hard-right freedom caucus who had leveraged their power due to the slim margin of control Republicans hold in the House.

But full details of those negotiations have not been made public, leading to speculation that McCarthy has guaranteed the group positions on key committees and thrust them further into power.

Speaking to CBS News on Sunday congresswoman Nancy Mace, a more moderate Republican from South Carolina, said while she supported the package itself, she had not decided on whether to vote for it on Monday.

But anonymous briefings have indicated that the holdout Republicans also attempted to negotiate more leverage over key committees, including approvals over a third of positions on the powerful rules committee, which is responsible for what proposed legislation reaches the floor of the House.

One of the central figures in negotiations between the ultra-conservatives and McCarthy was Texas congressman Chip Roy who acknowledged on Sunday that negotiations included adding more freedom caucus members to influential committees but did not provide further details.

The divisions highlight the dilemmas posed by such a slim Republican majority in the House. But speaking on Sunday, Jim Jordan, a freedom caucus member and the expected new chair of the House judiciary committee, predicted the rules package would pass on Monday and defended the chaos of last week.

But a number of Republican lawmakers have been implicated in the investigation themselves, leaving open questions around conflicts of interest.

On Sunday, the House freedom caucus chair Scott Perry, one of those under investigation, argued he could still serve on a committee undertaking oversight of federal investigators.