Kevin McCarthy was done being nice. The House Republican leader cast off his typically sunny demeanor during a December 8 meeting of the GOP conference to deliver a stern warning to his most raucous members: Quit trying to hold your vote for speaker over my head. "He said, 'If any of you come to me and tell me that you're not going to vote for me unless I do something, I'm going to do exactly the opposite, even if I agree with you,'" said Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who was there at the time. A second Republican member told...