let me be the first to tell you that there is finally a new speaker of the house, and the 118 congress has officially been convened. it took four days, and 15 tries, but in the early hours of this morning, the california congressman, kevin mccarthy, was finally elected the new speaker, putting him third in line for the presidency of the united states. it was a tough road getting there, especially last night, when tensions between republican members themselves, almost reached a breaking point. from the house reconvened at 10 pm last night, republicans appeared hopeful that they had votes to elect mccarthy on the 14th ballot, but when that seem headed for baylor, mccarthy s allied huddled around the florida congressman, matt gates, to get him to vote for mccarthy. instead, gates voted present, which is not good enough to win mccarthy in speakership. after the roll call, mccarthy himself approached gates, the two exchanged words amid a group of other lawmakers. mccarthy was the
happening now, breaking news. kevin mccarthy trying to seize the momentum right now in the fight for the speakership. the house is preparing to return to session at 10:00 p.m. eastern tonight, after two very dramatic votes saw the republican leader flip more than a dozen hardliner holdouts coming up just short of a majority. the country marks the second anniversary of the january 6th insur re insur insurrection. president biden honoring the defenders of democracy today, including several police officers brutally attacked while holding off the mob at the capitol. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you are in the situation room. announcer: this is cnn breaking news. let s get to the breaking news. the momentum in the speaker s race swinging heavily toward house republican leader kevin mccarthy. our chief congressional correspondent manu raju is joining us live from capitol hill. i understand you are getting new understand.
series of concessions put forward by his opponents. that cut his margin of defeat to a handful of votes. what matters now is who shows up to vote next. senior correspondent congressional correspondent chad pergram has the very latest from capitol hill. good evening, chad. bret, mccarthy finally showed movement towards winning the speakership today. it came after a three days of parliamentary paralysis. mccarthy remains a few votes short but he earned the votes of 15 adversaries today. we ll come back tonight and i believe at that time we ll have the votes to finish this once and for all. i think getting together and just finding the ability to how are we all going to work together? it s new for us. one, being in the majority but being in a tight majority. i think at the end of the day we re going to be more effective. more efficient. and definitely the government is going to be more accountable. the dam finally broke after mccarthy made concessions to. they will score k
snchts is there a deal for speaker in the works? i m erin burnett and we re out front . we re at a key moment in this totally grueling fight for speaker of the house. we re told negotiations are under way at this moment as an 11th vote is now under way. it appears that kevin mccarthy has lost, lost 11 votes. five just today. despite now the longest speaker contest in generations. as we re watching this, we re told that mccarthy support aernz his critics are at least talking. they ve been behind closed doors trying to hammer out a deal in an attempt to show some progress. but what might that deal look like? mccarthy already essentially given them everything that they want. he is promising votes on term limits, allowing just one member to force a vote to oust him, just one. and there are four in the never kevin camp. if there is just one more republican that mccarthy can t get the gavel without help from democrats. there is so much to get to tonight. let s go to capitol
were, you know, put in exile. that s what they ll have to get to. you ll have the folks. mary miller just miller. let s wait and see, chip roy and if you have scott perry voting yes, you ll have the serious people will now come over to kevin and then you ll have the kind of the clown show for lack of a better phrase, right? the people who are just they re just here for theater, right? if those are the folks still outstanding mccarthy will win. that s i think the key point. that was mary miller. mary miller who had previously been part of the bloc of 20 just flipped her vote. you see this building momentum in terms of flitting the bloc of the 20 who are obstinate against mccarthy. the thing to look at if you don t read the tea leaves of politics every day, the difference if that 20 between the intransigent ones there not in good faith to simply make a stand and show and frankly burn the house down, and the ones who have principled policy differences where they re