On this Thanksgiving Day official and media employed Washington are awash with rumors about meetings happening in Virginia and Maryland between Democrat House moderates and the staff of Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California. The reason? To deny Nancy Pelosi the speakership.

Up to 15 Democrats are involved in these talks including Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia. The goal is to cobble together enough votes in a moderate Democrat and Republican coalition to elect a moderate Democrat speaker of the House in January. At least 6 incoming House freshmen Democrats are also involved in the talks.

The plan would give Republicans some key House committee chairmanships, but the leadership would become a triumvirate between House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, who is not participating in the talks but knows of them, McCarthy, and the new speaker who could be Spanberger.

This plan is rumored to have been designed at the White House and communicated to McCarthy by White House aides immediately after the election.

Pelosi is said to be furiously working the phones as she never has before and offering every perk and deal in her bag to stave off defeat. She knows that not only is her office at risk but it puts the entire Biden-Harris plan in danger. If the Republicans nominally control the House, have the Senate, and solidly have the Supreme Court, as we saw from today’s ruling against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on virus bans on religious freedom, then where will the Biden administration go for the votes to pass its plans?

Yes, some bills may pass with moderate Republican votes. But the crazy lefty stuff that Biden promised the hard left for their support, like the Green New Deal, would be dead on arrival on Capitol Hill and the high court after Republicans sue. Granted, the Republicans couldn’t pass any legislation themselves. But that situation could change when the Republicans take back the House in 2024. Though the senate will be in play much more than it was this year.

If that happens the hard left could turn on Biden and either they could take to the streets, perhaps in alliance with hard right agitators, or they can get one of their own to fight a primary battle against Harris in 2024, thus priming the way for a second Trump administration by splitting the Democrats in two.

As the president readies an attack on Iran (in an indicator today the U.A.E. stopped issuing visas to those who come from radical Islamist nations), plans to pardon any person implicated in the Russian hoax, and moves loyalists into positions Biden can’t touch, denying Nancy Pelosi the speakership would be the cherry on the cake of a brilliant Trump endgame strategy.