speaker after four days and 15 rounds of voting. this was the moment that the longest speaker contest in 164 years came to a close. [ cheers ] but before the house selected its new speaker, the cameras captured a stunning political soap opera playing out on the house floor just before midnight. mccarthy and his allies thought they had the votes locked up in round 14, but florida congressman matt gaetz waited until the end of the ballot process to vote present even though mccarthy needed just one more yes vote to win. a stunned mccarthy walked up the house floor to confront gaetz. as he walked away looking dejected, enter arms services committee chairman mike rogers who lunged at gaetz and had to be restrained by fellow republican congressman hudson. many thought this was game over and the vote to adjourn until monday box office to pass be but then a breakthrough with gaetz was reached. mccarthy changed his vote on adjourning, and dozens followed. then the 15th time was the ch
mccarthy i voted for him 15 times. so there was no question my loyalty of any of that. and so but i was i also met with him early on, and i made very similar requests that the freedom caucus did. and i received about 85% of what i d asked for to make it you re not worried, congressman, that this looks like your party is not ready for primetime. no, heck no, brother. honestly, jim, and we miss you in knoxville, brother. but the truth is is that i miss everybody known there in knoxville, too. yes, sir. we i had more debate this week in congress, more meaningful debate, more intermingling, i would go over and talk on the democrat side, i talked to my friends in the squad, aoc and omar and all of them, and speaker pelosi sat beside me, checked on my daughter who got hurt in a little a horse accident, because she has a granddaughter, her name is isabella, and my
that we were able to pass. but what was going through your mind when you saw congressman rogers being restrained? just being there at this moment? yeah. well, you can see one of the earlier pictures where i d actually stiff armed him, and i knew he d lost his cool. it s the second time he d done that that week. he d done it earlier in a conference meeting and made some similar demands toward some of us. and it was unfortunate. one of those regrettable things. but it s something that will be it will be remembered. i don t think it should take away anything from leader then leader, now-speaker mccarthy s victory because it was hard fought. you know, i think something you also have to remember is that lauren boebert and matt gaetz had worked around the clock with several members of the freedom caucus to get some of these rules in place, and there were some excellent rules. some of those things. you know, you mentioned the
15th vote. but it was during that 14th vote where we saw everything sort of come to a head, jim. yes, things certainly escalated quickly. all right. thank you very much. al join me is tim burchett tennessee. you see him on the left of the screen, this photo you re looking at, as congressman rogers lunged over. we should note cnn has reached out to rogers office for comment, invited him on the program. we have not heard back. thank you so much for being with us. congressman, you know, we re used to seeing scenes play out like this in other countries. we don t see it happen on the house floor in the united states very often. obviously people were exhausted last night, tempers were flaring. it was late at night. tell us what you saw. what was happening in the lead up to this moment? well, you re correct, it was very late. realize that both sides have some older members, and it was getting late. i suspect most of them had
straightjacket. do you think it s going to be impossible to govern, impossible to preside over the house for the upcoming speaker, the incoming speaker, because of some of these concessions? i mean, all it takes is one member to go to the house floor sure right. couldn t matt gaetz do this next week? start it all over again? he he could do it every day, but it s just a vote of confidence is what it is. and it would be a simple majority. so i thinking about in leadership and being able to control the floor vote is a key thing, and of course the whip, our new whip who was steve scalise, now it s tom emert, will do an excellent job. guy resenthaler is number two, we came together and they have an excellent machine, they know how to work the floor and do it well. i think it literally i do think it holds the speaker accountable to the people, to the real people.