“The fight’s just begun—the speaker’s fight was a preview,” he said at a fundraiser this past week for the Kerr County Republicans. Of his time in Washington, he said: “I’m not there to get second place. I’m there to win.”
The GOP lawmaker was a leader of the conservative holdouts opposing Kevin McCarthy’s speakership bid, extracting concessions at the negotiating table in exchange for allowing the California Republican to win the top job. Now, fresh off that January fight, Mr. Roy is telling backers to get ready for another one, as Mr. McCarthy tries to unite the party again, this time in a high-stakes battle with Democrats over the nation’s borrowing limit.
“If you think it was hot then, the debt-ceiling fight is going to get a lot hotter,” he told business owners at the Kerrville Area Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday.
Mr. Roy is a pivotal figure in the talks. He wants to see a debt-ceiling deal that is paired with immediate spending cuts that will start in the coming fiscal year, including setting the top-line number for appropriations spending to levels from two years earlier. He is pushing for Republicans to pass a plan this month to kick-start negotiations with the White House.
