Kevin McCarthy And The Economy SAVED By Thomas Massie...

New York Magazine ran a story headlined, "The Quirky Conservative Who Saved the Economy and McCarthy," and that headline is accurate.

"Thomas Massie drives a Tesla with a 'friends of coal' vanity plate and walks around Capitol Hill wearing an electronic debt clock on his lapel that constantly updates the sum owed by the federal government. And, on Tuesday, the fate of the entire global economy was in his hands," reported the outlet.

Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, was put on a Rules Committee along with two members of the Freedom Caucus, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Chip Roy of Texas.

The committee has authority to decide what bills go to the House floor and whether they can be amended.

Traditionally, the committee works as an extension of the Speaker and is packed with his allies.

But we all know, nothing about the current Congress has functioned in a traditional way.

"The committee was deciding whether to allow the bill to raise the debt ceiling advance to the floor of the House. If Massie voted no, there was almost unlimited potential for economic catastrophe. The reason it was a tough decision was that conservative Republicans have viewed the debt ceiling as a potential hostage for over a decade. After a showdown in 2011 that resulted in spending caps, Senator Mitch McConnell infamously said Republicans had realized 'it’s a hostage that’s worth ransoming.' He added a significant caveat however: Most of his members didn’t think it was a hostage worth shooting. The issue this time was whether McCarthy was getting enough out of the bluff with both the Senate and the White House controlled by Democrats," New York Magazine wrote.

The committee's hearing included four Democrats and two Freedom Caucus members on the 13-member committee, and Massie’s vote was the determining factor in whether the debt ceiling deal would move forward or if it would crumble less than a week before default.

Massie was not unaware of the stakes inside the tiny room where the committee meets. The walls were lined with around 20 photographers anxiously awaiting his vote, watching his every move.

The congressman spoke, "I’m reluctant to say how I might vote on this rule because then all the cameras leave." Everyone chuckled.

Massie then took a dramatic pause and narrated it by saying "dramatic pause" before announcing, "I anticipate voting for the rule."

After Massie's statement, the photographers left, and the room emptied.

Massie said that after careful thought, he saw the bill as a net positive.

"The engineer and problem-solver in me wanted to vote for it and the politician did not. By engineering, I’m thinking of calculus and linear algebra. When I look at this logically and mathematically, the derivative is in the right direction," Massie said. "I’m just pretty binary on this. It cuts spending. It’s the first bill that’s going to become law that I’ve ever voted for that does that."