After two full days and six rounds of voting, with 21 Republican holdouts blocking Kevin McCarthy’s long-held dream of becoming speaker of the House, the 57-year-old from Bakersfield, Calif., gathered a small group of lawmakers to hear his final pitch.

Huddled in the office of Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), McCarthy told the three moderates and four holdouts that his offer was to become the 55th speaker by significantly weakening the position and empowering his party’s hard-liners.

The meeting, according to people present and briefed, became a turning point in breaking the impasse as much for the terms of the deal as for how it reestablished trust between the two factions. The small group was selected among those who had shown good faith in weeks of negotiations, and turned into what was described as a “therapy” session. The holdouts explained that McCarthy had offended them by rejecting their wish list of committee assignments after he’d been the one to ask for it, and for delivering a fiery speech to the Republican conference saying he’d “earned” the job. The moderates, in turn, gained assurances that the concessions to the hard-liners weren’t unreasonable and wouldn’t be abused.

“The moment I knew it was going to be his is when we got it down to a handful of members that Kevin could work personally,” Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.), a close McCarthy ally, said early Saturday. “The crux of all the movement was around assurances, trust-building assurances. That was massive. Massive. Which leads to functionality, which leads to conservative policy.”

The Wednesday night meeting became the basis for a framework agreement hammered out over two more days and six more rounds of voting, eventually leading to McCarthy’s winning the speakership in the early hours of Saturday morning. Months of posturing and saber-rattling at last gave way to serious talks on changing how the new House would operate, with a special focus on passing spending bills.

What emerged was a deal that would secure McCarthy his prize only by diminishing it — and putting the House on a collision course for more crises like the one just barely resolved, next time over funding the government or raising the debt limit.

“It just reminds me of what my father always told me: It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish,” McCarthy told reporters in the Capitol on Friday. “Getting together and finding the ability to, ‘How’re we all gonna work together’ — it’s new for us, being in the majority, but being in a tight majority.”

This account of how House Republicans spun themselves into and out of the days-long stalemate over the speakership is based on interviews with dozens of lawmakers, aides and outside confidants, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal private deliberations.

‘Governing majority’ or ‘cartel’

In his office, McCarthy kept a large celebratory wine bottle from the last time Republicans won the majority — along with stacks of polling in various districts to show how he’d get the votes — and talked extensively about his plans as speaker.

Two months ago, on election night, McCarthy and top lieutenants staged a victory party at a hotel ballroom in Washington, with a backdrop blaring “TAKE BACK THE HOUSE.” McCarthy huddled backstage with advisers — including lobbyist Jeff Miller, strategist Mike Shields and political aide Brian Jack, as well as Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel — receiving continuous updates about early returns.

McCarthy and close allies had raised and routed millions of dollars toward winning the House, but also shaping the incoming class of Republicans. Their goal was winning not just a majority but a “governing majority,” meaning a conference that would reliably support McCarthy and pass legislation. In some cases, that meant quiet moves by allies and donors to swing primaries away from controversial candidates such as Madison Cawthorn in North Carolina and Joe Kent in Washington.

Republicans were widely expecting a rout in competitive House seats to rival the tea party wave of 2010. But the early reports to McCarthy’s team weren’t showing a red wave. They spent hours debating what to do, when McCarthy should take the podium to speak. He didn’t go on until 2 a.m.

-Washington Post