Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty
After a surprisingly strong—and surprisingly bipartisan—House vote Wednesday night on the debt limit compromise, Republican senators who looked poised to fight tooth and nail on Thursday instead went quietly and softly, opting instead to speed up a vote, pass the deal, and get out of town.
But if you ask the GOP senators themselves, it wasn’t that they were any less opposed to the bill. Something else, something much larger than the desire to have a long weekend, might have been at play.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-NV) spent much of Wednesday trying to muster a rebellion in the House, showing up on the House side to talk with conservatives, speaking out on the deal, even calling attention to a Daily Beast article about Democrats not wanting to brag too early that they had won the negotiation.