Transcripts For CNNW CNN 20240703

A surprisingly strong jobs report crushed economists expectations this morning. U. S. Companies on a hiring tear in september, creating 336,000 new jobs, nearly double what economists were expecting. President biden did hope to take some credit for it, talking up his bidenomics plan to help the economy. Listen to this. Mr. President , can you be specific about what you did to try to reappropriate those border funds, especially when democrats controlled both chambers . I was told that i had no choice. That, you know, Congress Passes legislation to build something, whether its an aircraft carrier, a wall or provide for a tax cut. I cant so thats not the right sound bite. Nevertheless, President Biden did try to take credit for the surprising jobs report. We have cnns matt egan to break it all down for us. Walk you throughs it. Where were the biggest job gains . Reporter boris, these were Blockbuster Numbers and the best part is virtually no one saw it coming, 336,000 jobs added, you know, that is spectacular growth in any economy, but in an economy where youre dealing with high Borrowing Costs and high inflation, it really is impressive. As you mentioned, about double consensus, but even more impressive is if you look at the range of forecasts, this was 80,000 jobs stronger than even the most optimistic forecaster had anticipated. Now, there really was strength across the board, as you can see, hiring heating up. When you look at the sector breakdown we Saw Tens Of Thousands of jobs added last month in health care, government, leisure and hospitality. With he see bars and Restaurant Employment is finally back to precovid levels. The Unemployment Rate is now at 3. 8 , it stayed unchanged. This is really low. Miles away from that spike to almost 15 back in the spring of 2020. So you put all this together it paints the picture of a strong economy, a strong jobs market. It should go a long way towards quieting those recession fears. I mean, an economy adding 300,000 jobs in one month is nowhere near a recession. If anything, though, the question is is this economy and is the jobs market too strong from the perspective of the Federal Reserve and their quest to get inflation under control . Remember, wall street and washington really wanted goldilocks, not too hot, not too cold. This report, boris, was on the hot side. No question about that. We will have to see how the fed reacts. You alluded to markets wanting a sort of goldilocks jobs report. What did we see in the markets, because the dow had a bit of a shift today. Reporter yeah, you can say that again. You know, as soon as this number came out stocks went down, right, because immediately investors were fearing the fed was going to have to do more to put out the inflation fire. It looked like we were going to be in one of those situations where good news for main street is bad news for wall street, but look at this, everything turned around in the stock market, the dow was down about 200 points at one point, now its up about 400 points, 172 . Two reasons, some investors and leading economists are saying, do you know what, the fed is still going to keep Interest Rates unchanged at the next meeting, november 1st. And thats because not every part of this jobs report was hot. When you look at wages, wages actually cooled off. Paychecks are still growing, theyre still growing faster than inflation, but theyre growing at a slower pace, which is exactly what the fed wants to see and here is why this is all important, right, the higher that Interest Rates have to go from the fed the higher Borrowing Costs are and the greater risk that they do too much and tip the economy into recession. For now, though, boris, looks like everyone is sort of in agreement, this is unequivocally good news. Matt egan, thanks for walking us through that. Two prominent republicans are now competing to fill the power vacuum their party created on capitol hill. Congressman jim jordan and Steve Scalise are courting fellow Caucus Members Behind Closed Doors hoping to lock down enough support to win the speakers gavel. Emotions and opinions over Kevin Mccarthys ouster are still very raw, but what happens next will be critical for cobsngress and e house gop and america at large. It may be no surprise that donald trump is getting involved. He likes to be center stage. The 2024 republican president ial front runner and criminal defendant just endorsed jim jordans candidacy and has offered to step in as Interim Speaker until this is all settled. Lets get more on todays Back Door Maneuvering from cnn capitol Hill Reporter Melanie Zanona. A lot going on in your neck of the woods. How far is the house gop from uniting around a single candidate . Reporter pam, i can tell you in talking to my sources no one is very confident that House Republicans are going to be able to elect a new speaker by next week. Right now its a competitive twoway race between jim jordan and Steve Scalise. Steve scalise is really leaning on his Leadership Experience and his Fundraising Skills and in his pitch to members and then jim jordan is the chair of the judiciary committee, he has ties to the far right and also just picked up an endorsement from former President Donald Trump. But both jordan and scalise are making a play for the more moderate members in the party whose votes are really up for grabs and they are also among the most burned and feel the most upset by the Kevin Mccarthy removal earlier this week. So it makes sense that both scalise and jordan are trying to pitch themselves as best positioned to unite this bitterly divided congress. Our manu raju caught up with jim jordan earlier today. Here is what he had to say. Reporter youre saying youre united. What is different between you and Steve Scalise . I think its just that this race comes down to two questions, i said this yesterday, who can unite the conference, who can also unite i guess maybe three questions. Who can you auto night the congress, who can unite conservative republicans in our party around the country and then who can go tell the country what were doing and why its important to them, to their to their family, to their business, to their community. And, look, i like the job ive got now, i never wanted to do this job, but someone has to, who can bring the Team Together and go communicate to the country and thats why im running. Reporter and in a sign of how chaotic it still is inside the gop and how emotions are still so raw, were told that both jim jordan and Steve Scalise backed out of a planned fox news joint televised interview that was supposed to occur on monday from the capitol. This after they were receiving fierce and swift blow back from within the party over that idea. House republicans will still hold their own Candidate Forum on tuesday, candidates will get to come make their pitch Behind Closed Doors and then on wednesday House Republicans will once again meet Behind Closed Doors where they will elect their speaker but only a simple majority is needed to become the republican nominee. The bigger question is whether they can get 218 votes on the floor and at this point its not clear that either candidate can. Pam . And, melanie, you have some reporting about everything with this fox forum that the candidates said they would do, now theyre pulling out. Whats going on with that . Reporter yeah, so as i was mentioning, they were supposed to do this fox news joint interview, some sort of forum where they were going to get together and be broadcasting from the capitol, but the second that plan was announced my phone started blowing up with messages particularly from moderate republicans who said this is a horrible idea. They were worried it was going to turn into a circus, they didnt like the idea of these candidates talking in front of fox news instead of coming Behind Closed Doors so it quickly fell apart almost as quickly as it came together. Thank you so much. Boris . As migrant crossings at the Southern Border surged this week the white house rolled out a plan to add 20 additional miles of Border Barriers in south texas. The thing is President Biden campaigned against adding even a single foot to the wall and he says that border walls dont work. Earlier today a mayor in the Rio Grande Valley getting those new barriers also told us they dont work, at least in the planned location that theyre coming up in. And President Bidens Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently clarified the administrations stance is that a border wall is not the answer to the immigration crisis, so then why are they adding it at all . Cnns Priscilla Alvarez is here to explain. President biden was asked about this again a short time ago, what did he say . He maintained what his officials have been saying which is that they had to do this. Its not so much that he wanted to do this. Lets listen to what he had to say. Mr. President , can you be specific about what you did to try to reappropriate those border funds, especially when democrats controlled both chambers . I was told that i had no choice, that i you know, Congress Passes legislation to build something, whether its an aircraft carrier, wall or provide for a tax cut. I cant say i dont like t im not going to do it. If it hasnt been vetoed. If its the law. Reporter you said yesterday that you tried to reappropriate the funds. We tried to ask the congress to consider changing the law. So what hes referring to there is the congressionally appropriated funds from 2019 which was for physical Border Barriers. Sources i have spoken with said that the administration was running up against a deadline. They had to use these funds by the end of fiscal year 2023, which is why theyre doing just that. Boris, this comes down to what a president campaigns on doesnt always look the same when youre governing, in this case it was because of something that had happened before he took the office. Absolutely. And we should note while the administration asked congress to reappropriate those funds in 2021, democrats did control congress for two years before that. So his hands were tied, he says, but democrats ultimately held the key. Biden is also unveiling some new policy when it comes to venezuelans who enter the country illegally. Tell us about this. This is a major breakthrough. For years the u. S. Has not carried out regular deportation flights to venezuela because of frosty relations with the country. That changes now where they will be able to do direct deportation rights. The reason its so important now is because there are more than 7 million venezuelans who are moving across the Western Hemisphere and have fled that country, many of them are coming to the u. S. Southern border and that has been a unique challenge for the Biden Administration when all they could do is process them and release, detain or send some back to mexico but not necessarily deport. Now theyre trying to signal they could Levee Consequences for these migrants crossing unlawfully, while also trying to maintain the stance of providing some sort of lawful pathway for them to come to the u. S. , but this is really a reflection of just how difficult its been to deal with this particular subset of population that continues to come to the board sthoor we will see how this might impact numbers and potentially politically for President Biden as well. Priscilla alvarez, thank you so much. Mexicos president just responded to the Biden Administrations move to build nor Border Barriers, calling it a, quote, publicity stunt because there are elections in the United States. And he describes it as an effort to fall in the good grace of those against migrants. Lets dig deeper with republican congressman Carlos Gimenez of florida. Great to see you as always. The Biden Administration moving forward with new border wall construction. Is that the right move or is this, as amalo describes t a publicity stunt . Theres not so many times i agree with the president of mexico but i will have to agree with him now. This is a smoke screen, a publicity stunt. The situation at the border is completely out of control. Where even mayors and governors in blue states and cities are crying for relief and this is just one way to say to let them say, hey, were doing something about t were building 20 miles of wall. Thats the most ridiculous thing i have ever heard of in my life because he has to build it . Wait a minute, he had to build it in 2021 when he took over and he decided to just stop the construction of the border wall. 20 miles isnt going to do anything. This is just political, political theater. So how about the move to immediately deport venezuelan migrants who enter i will alley, many are fleeing a regime that you have been critical of. Are you okay to send them back . Why is it just venezuelans. We have hundreds of Different Countries coming through, millions of different migrants coming through not just from venezuela. I find it ironic that most of the folks that are up in New York City happen to be venezuelan. Again, i think this is politics. Hes trying to placate the new york mayor who is crying who is crying for relief. And also, you know, the proof is going to be in the pudding. This administration has said they were going to do this or that, were going to control the border by doing this and that. I never ever listen to what they say, i watch what they do. They said they rolled out different policies, saying this is going to stop it. By the way, the border is under control. Now this is more politics. But, again, why is it just venezuelans . Maybe theyre idealogically not aligned with your party. Maybe you know if they become citizens theyre actually going to be voting more republican like they do in south florida. I dont know. It sounds like politics to me. To that question, congressman, if it should not only be venezuelans that are deported immediately should it also be cuban americans like you and myself . What i have said all along is that we need to follow the law. The law says that if you have an asylum claim you need to stay in a third country or you are detained in our country. And so we just need to follow the law. For everybody. Whether its cuban, whether its venezuelan, we need to follow the law. If you have a valid asylum claim, we are welcoming countries with open arms and we welcome you with open arms like they did me and my parents when i came here in 1960. We had a valid asylum claim, we were fleeing from communism. If you have one, then, yeah, i think that, you know, there is a difference for you, but a lot of the people coming through now, you know, like when back in 2019, 18, 90 of the people that were asking for asylum were being denied by the courts because they didnt have a valid asylum claim. We just need to follow the law. Congressman, i do want to get to the question of who should be the next House Speaker and as i do that i want to mention the former president because he endorsed jim jordan. Before we get into that conversation, President Trump weighed in on the border saying that undocumented immigrants are, quote, poisoning the blood of our country and bringing in disease. Is it your thought that someones blood is different because they have a legitimate asylum claim or not . Was this appropriate for the former president to say . No, look, im an immigrant myself and so this is a country of immigrants. I think what hes trying to say is that we have this flood, people are violating the law, this administration is violating the law itself. It opened the border, it caused this Mass Migration to come into the United States. I dont know how many migrants are dying because theyre trying to trek make the trek to the United States. How many migrants are being trafficked, how many minors are being trafficked. For gods sakes we dont know, there are 85,000 minors we dont even know where they are. This is completely out of control. This is the cause this administrations policies and, no, im a migrant im an immigrant myself. Immigration actually strengthens america, but Legal Immigration strengthens america. I appreciate you reading that into the former president s comments but the fact is he said that they are poisoning the blood of our country, evoking language frequently used by people who dont have the same position on immigration as you do, who say very negative things about immigrants and generally speak in the language of white supremacists. You are reading into that Something Else . Look, i dont know what that means to be honest with you. Maybe you need to talk to the president and ask him exactly what that means. If it means that its poisoning the concept that america is a place of laws, yeah, because the Biden Administration is allowing that to happen. Fair point. We will ask that of the president if and when we get the opportunity. Im asking you because you did endorse him to be the next president. We will get back to who like i said, i dont know what that means so you need to find out exactly what he means when he says that. Im just letting you know why im asking you, partly because you are an immigrant yourself. Congressman, President Trump did endorse jim jordan to be speaker of the house. I know you were frustrated when you learned that jim jordan and Steve Scalise were planning to hold this debate on monday night on fox news, something that has been scrapped all together. Im wondering what conversations you have had with them, if youre leaning in either direction. Right now im uncommitted and i will remain uncommitted until i guess i make up my mind and im not close to making up my mind. I want to listen to them in conference. You knew, one thing ive stated very clearly is that i want a commitment that were going to change the rule on the motion to vacate. The motion to vacate rule with one member allowed to do that is insanity. We just tasted insanity, we have just tasted chaos and i dont want to taste it again. I think the majority of the conference wants to see that rule changed. And so i want to see which of these candidates can change that rule because if not, were going to continue to see this insanity and this chaos when one member decides that theyre going to unify and get the help of all the democrats to remove a republican speaker. It happened once, it should never happen again. And lastly, congressman, to tie it all together, how significant is the issue of immigration in your selection of who you will endorse for the next House Speaker . Look, we all have the same we all agree on immigration, we need to control the border, we need to i dont see any difference between jim jordan and Steve Scalise on the ability or what we need to do at the border, which is we need to abide by and enforce the laws of the United States of america. Thats what were asking for. Thats what were asking the Biden Administration to do. So i dont think theres going to be any difference on that. I dont think theres going to be any difference on the disaster that is the biden energy policy, i dont think there will be any difference on the disaster that is the Biden Economic policy, what were doing overseas. I think both of them agree we all agree on those basic principles. The disagreement may be how do you get to 218. By the way, we dont have all this Great Division inside the Republican Party. If you recall its 210 of us decided and voted to retain Kevin Mccarthy. Its a small little fraction, eight, its 4 of us decided to go a different direction. I dont see that as a Great Division. Yeah, we have a difference of opinion with these eight, but thats only 4 of our party. By the way, they lit the fuse and the democrats provided most of the gun powder to remove Kevin Mccarthy. So, yeah, theres not that Great Division inside, we just need to get these eight to come along. With he also need these eight to change that motion to vacate because i think they can see, too, the kind of chaos theyve created. It is a significant influence that those eight members have. Congressman Carlos Gimenez, we have to leave the conversation there. Appreciate your time, sir. Its my pleasure. Have a great one. Still ahead, former President Donald Trump trying to delay the Civil Fraud Trial targeting his business. A hearing is under way this hour. We will explain why new yorks Attorney General argues it would cause chaos. Plus a deadly 24 hours in ukraine. First a village targeted and then a residential building by russian missiles. The latest images coming in of the aftermath. We will be right back. New developments in the fraud case against donald trump. An Appeals Court just wrapped up Hearing Arguments on the former president s motion for a stay at the trial as well as the stay at the judges order to dissolve trumps corporate entities. This coming at the end of week one of testimony in that civil trial. The former president has been trying to get all of the court cases against him delayed or dismissed. Cnns Kara Scannell is live for us in new york. Whats been happening inside the court today . Reporter well, pam, the judge overhearing this Emergency Action has heard about 15 minutes of arguments. He has told the parties that hes going to take a break that is correct they should stand by and then he will have a decision on this shortly. So they asked the Trump Organization and donald trump is asking this Appeals Court to stop the trial that has been under way this week and also to pause the judges order, and that judges order had argued this found that trump was liable for fraud and ordered the dissolution and cancellation of Business Certificates for the Trump Organization and certain of its entities. Trump is saying that this should be put on pause until they can appeal the merits of that Lower Court Decision saying that the judge does not pre hend the scope of chaos also decision has wrote. The Attorney Generals Office is saying we are in day five, this is too late to make this ask and also saying that a delay would create a cascade of delays in not only this case but also other litigation involving am trump. If the trial is delayed this is significant based on the deadlines in these other cases and that that would have an impact on some of the other cases and they say that theyre trying to use one court against another in their bigger litigation strategy. The issue here is will this be delayed. Out at the top of this hearing there is one judge hearing the arguments. He said he was not inclined to issue an interim stay but has not yet ruled. The Attorney Generals Office said that they were willing to work with trump to postpone the implementation of the judges order. This part being what assets might have to be sold saying that they would be willing to put that off until the trial is done and until the judge rules on this trial. So they said that trumps team is not willing to engage in that. Trumps team is going to the court to try to get a judge to put the brakes on that as well saying that it would have severe and irreparable harm not only to the Trump Organization but all of the employees that work at some of these properties in new york such as trump tower, among others. So that is their ask now, you know t comes as this trial is in its fifth day. They just finished the examination of the third witness in this case. As the attorney Generals Team is trying to get at the heart this have issue that the valuations that the trumps used for many of their assets including maralago, golf courses, a number of their commercial properties was inflated. Theyve been bringing through some of that testimony in this trial so far and next week will kick off a busy week with some additional kind of big name witnesses including the former chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg who had been working at the Trump Organization for 40 plus years, he is expected to take the stand on tuesday. That is a big day. Thank you so much, Kara Scannell. We will be right back. Is it possible my network could take my business to the next level . It is with comcast business. Powering all your devices with gigspeed wifi. And you get fast downloads and uploads. Pick it up pick it up oh we got this because its powered by The Next Generation 10g network. More speed for your business . Its not just possible. Its happening. Get started for 59. 99 a month for 12 months. Plus, ask how to get an 800 prepaid card with a qualifying internet bundle. Comcast business, powering possibilities. The power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. And thats a good thing . Great in my book who are you . No power . No problem. Introducing stormready wifi. Now you can stay reliably connected through Power Outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery backup to keep you online. Only from xfinity. Home of the xfinity 10g network. Russia continues to reign death and destruction on ukraine. A Missile Strike on residential buildings in kharkiv today killed a 10yearold and his grandmother. Dozens more were left injured. Meantime, in the small village of hroza they are reeling. At least 52 people were killed as they gathered to mourn a local soldier. The building was obliterated after russia targeted it with a large ballistic missile. With us to discuss mark hertling. General hertling, thank you for being with us, a spokesperson for the kremlin says that russia doesnt target civilians, but a Grocery Store where there was a memorial for a fallen soldier, that doesnt strike me as a military target. Its not a military target, boris, and this town of hroza is a relatively small town, small population far away from the front line struck by what appears to be a missile. Now, that kind of missile delivers over 1,000 pound warhead. 1,000 pounds of dynamite. It has close to a 300mile range. It has guidance, then its gps guided to a target. When you take all of those things into consideration, knowing hroza is a small town without probably any air defense from the Ukrainian Forces around it, this is an indicator of russia targeting and an indicator of a war crime since this missile did go against civilian infrastructure that had no military value. In effect, boris, this is called premeditated murder. Wow. Given that, general hertling, do you think its a coincidence that this deadly civilian attack, the deadliest one we have seen in more than a year, comes at a time when it appears to be that support for ukraine in the form of aid and funding from the west appears to be hit ago rough patch . Yeah, certainly, boris. Anytime you are in combat you always have to weigh the physical with the psychological. And thats what mr. Putin is doing. Last winter as you recall there were continuous strikes against ukrainian infrastructure. Now were talking about these kinds of strikes which i would suggest should be counterproductive to mr. Putins war aims. When you see these kind of things it would seem to me that most people would step up and say, lets help ukraine stop this. Lets contribute to their continuing their fight for their sovereignty and their freedom but in fact what were seeing right now in congress is just the opposite where there is an increasing number of relatively small number of representatives in our congress who are saying lets not give aid to these people who in effect as i just said are being murdered, who are being executed and are targeted by Russian Military when they are civilians. General, while we have you i do want to ask about the new reporting from abc that months after he left the White House Former President Donald Trump allegedly shared Sensitive Information about u. S. Nuclear subs with an australian billionaire at his maralago resort. Allegedly the former president sharing details like how many warheads are typically on these submarines and how close they can get to russian submarines without being detected. What are the implications of that kind of information being out there . You know, boris, all Classified Information is provided to those who have a need to know and the president when they are in office certainly need to know a lot of things in order to help them make decisions but when you are out of office and sharing this kind of information, which i would, you know, suspect is given its a Nuclear Submarine is at the highest level of classification, top secret and perhaps even some code word kind of information, sharing that just haphazardly at the resort at maralago or perhaps even other information at one of his golf courses to civilians that dont have a need to know is extremely dangerous, puts our country at risk and also puts certainly those members that are serving in the submarine force at risk because its basically giving away information that they like to keep secret and is required for their operations. So to me its just another indicator that there is a lack of security in the past administration in terms of dealing with our nations secrets and thats extremely dangerous. Lieutenant general mark hertling, we very much appreciate your expertise and perspective. Thanks so much. Pleasure, boris. Thank you. Of course. So in the federal indictment against senator bob menendez and his wife for bribery it was revealed that she apparently hit and killed a Pedestrian Back in 2018 before they were married. We have new details on the incident when Cnn News Central returns. According to the New York Times the new jersey Attorney General has opened an inquiry into a 2018 fatal car crash involving Nadine Menendez, the wife of bob menendez. The accident happened before they were married and is mentioned in the federal bribery indictment against them, the car was. Cnn has obtained Surveillance Footage from the crash in which a pedestrian was struck and killed. Police questioned Nadine Menendez at the scene and concluded she was not at fault though she was not tested for drugs or alcohol. Cnn chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst john miller is here with us with more. What more do we know about the new i believe choir frey from the New Jersey Ag and what will investigators be looking for . Well, what we know from the new inquiry s you know, the new Jersey Police department provided us with the records really just almost immediately after we requested them earlier this week. Yesterday we came to the Bergen County Prosecutors Office with questions and those questions have remained unanswered. The Prosecutors Office is important here, pam, because the police are the initial response but when there is a fatality in the accident, the prosecutors prosecutor Fatal Accident investigating unit basically takes over the investigative part of the case. So one of the things that is central here is about whether or not they should have been able to get her phone at the scene and figure out if that played a factor in the accident. Lets go to a Dash Camera Video from the police car that night of them asking Nadine Arslanian about that phone at the scene. I didnt do anything wrong. No. You know. Look, i understand. Before you go, i just want to confirm that you do not want to give me your phone, correct . Yes. Okay. And thats your statement that you were driving this way, the guy came from this way and he ran into your vehicle . He jumped on my windshield, yes. Okay. So why is that important . Thats important because as the individual, mr. Coop, is being struck by the car and he falls off the car, the car sits there for a full minute stock still. Nadine arslanian doesnt get out of the car. After a minute the car goes about 100 feet forward and pulls over to the side. Theres no apparent effort to get out of the car to check on the man who is down in the street to see if hes okay or if he can talk. So the questions we had is was she using the phone at the time of the accident . Texting, looking at something on the screen, talking to someone. Second question, did she use that phone to call 911 after the accident or did that call come from someone else . Third question was did she use that phone to call anyone else up to including her boyfriend at the time, senator menendez, to ask what to do. All of those questions were on our list for the Prosecutors Office and they basically said submit a records request, which is ironic because at the same time we were asking for those records members of the state Attorney Generals Office were there seizing all the records from the Prosecutors Office and the Sheriffs Department regarding this accident so they can review it. So theres a little bit of a circling of the wagons here and some kind of probe beginning to unfold in how all that went that night and in the days after. So a lot of looming questions as you point out. John miller, thank you. Still ahead, Breaking News on the future of the now former House Speaker Kevin Mccarthy. You know i got two home runs. You got two jacks. And then my grand slam. I signed a ball for you. Okay. And it says papa i love you. Why did you do that . Because youve taught me everything about baseball. Oh hunny bunny, thats so sweet. Breaking News into cnn. Sources tell Melanie Zanona and me that former House Speaker Kevin Mccarthy is expected to step down from congress before the end of this term. Lets get back to Melanie Zanona on capitol hill. So were both hearing that mccarthy plans to stick around through the vote for the speakership, right . But then his future in the house is uncertain. Right . Reporter yeah, thats right. In talking to sources close to Kevin Mccarthy, they are expecting him to leave before the end of his term. This is something that he has been toying with and he said in a closed door Conference Meeting after being removed as speaker that he wants to go home and spend time with his family. But he wants to stick around at least through the rest of the speakership election. He wants to make sure that the conference which has been so chaotic over the last few days especially is calm and steady before he leaves. Now, he doesnt plan to get involved in the speakers race. Were told he is not expected to endorse any candidate, but he does want to be around to see it through. And keep in mind is this a huge Seismic Shift for the party. Kevin mccarthy came to congress in 2007, he was a State Lawmaker in california before that. He has spent his entire adult career in politics. He came to congress, he worked his way through the leadership ranks. He has held multiple leadership roles over the years. And he tried to become speaker back in 2015. And at that time, the House Freedom caucus denied him the gavel. But he kept fighting. He eventually became the leader of his party and when they took the majority last year, you remember that january vote, it took him 15 rounds to become speaker and he did finally get there. But Kevin Mccarthy says he has no regrets about how he acted during speaker, whether it was the bipartisan Debt Ceiling Deal that we saw earlier this summer or his consequential decision on saturday to put a Stopgap Funding Bill on the floor to fund the government which ultimately led to his ouster earlier this week. But again, just so much uncertainty in the Republican Party because we still dont know who is going to replace Kevin Mccarthy. At the moment we have an Interim Speaker, that is patrick mchenry, but two men are vying to replace Kevin Mccarthy. That is jim jordan and Steve Scalise. Scalise has been in leadership right behind Kevin Mccarthy for many years. So well have to see how it all plays out next week. But as of right now, it looks like Kevin Mccarthy might not be sticking around in congress, though he could still be involved politically as someone who is a strong fundraiser and very plugged in to republican politics. Very significant move. So many members have come out and essentially said that this ousting had to do with him being trustworthy, but we should know his final act of speaker was to come to a consensus to keep the government open. It absolutely was. And what is interesting here, you noted that he is considering leaving congress all together after the speakership election. But it is interesting that he also wants to sit it out with the election. Right . He is not throwing his support behind either candidate. Both voted for him to stay in the speakership. And we expect that to continue. Right . We expect him to continue sitting this out. Right, melanie . Reporter yeah, that is exactly right. He has jim jordan who has actually become a close ally of Kevin Mccarthy which has been just a fascinating transformation to watch because jim jordan once ran against Kevin Mccarthy for the role of leader of their party. But he became an ally and has been a very vocal supporter of kuala lumpur. And Kevin Mccarthy. And then you have Steve Scalise. There is a ptepid relationship between the two because scalise was seen as a rival. But Kevin Mccarthy doesnt want to get involved and he doesnt think that his voice would be helpful to uniting the bitterly divided congress. So he is happy to stay on the sidelines. But like i said, he still wants to ensure that the party is able to steer in the right direction, that they are able to come together and eventually settle on a new speaker. And bring us very quickly into his mind set of wanting to leave congress after the election. How the ouster played into that. Well, look, i mean once you are deposed as speaker, i dont know what role that you could really play. At least in leadership for Kevin Mccarthy. There probably wouldnt be a role for him to play in leadership. So do you really want to serve as back bencher member of congress after you held youll this power before. We did see nancy pelosi, i think she was former speaker and when she stepped down, she decided as to stay in congress. So not entirely out of The Realm Of Possibility for Kevin Mccarthy, but at this point, the expectation is that he will resign from congress at some point. Major Breaking News from Melanie Zanona and pam brown. Thanks for joining us this week. And the lead with jake tapper starts after a short break