A strange dynamic is brewing in the bewitching Kevin McCarthy Speakership race: the right-wing media is actually defanging the Freedom Caucus’s attempt to tank his leadership bid. Charlie Kirk, Mark Levin, John Cardillo, Jack Posobiec, Will Chamberlain, Mike Cernovich, Ned Ryun and others are actually roasting McCarthy’s MAGA antagonists—Reps. Matt Gaetz, Bob Good, Andy Biggs, Matt Rosendale, and Ralph Norman—in defense of the minority leader. Even Tucker Carlson, who is not a fan of McCarthy and has said that his “Commitment to America” policy package contains “nothing real,” has not encouraged a MAGA rebellion. 

Cardillo recently accused Gaetz of putting his personal hatred for McCarthy ahead of the movement. Breitbart’s Matt Boyle warned of a “doomsday scenario” if the group doesn’t support McCarthy. And Levin called the five public nos the “Gang of Five Saboteurs.” As one conservative strategist who was involved in the John Boehner coup told me, “These guys must be shocked that Levin, Kirk, Breitbart are lighting them up.” 

Gaetz, despite the way these MAGA Twitter blue-checks are targeting him, has continued to treat McCarthy like a political pinata, and he told me on Monday that he and the four other public nays are immovable. But how immovable is immovable, really?