sources are telling us that house republicans are on a conference call right now. they re trying to figure out what is the path forward to get a speaker in place. just within the last couple of minutes, we saw kevin mccarthy telling our team on the hill he thinks he will get to the magic number, 218, same game plan, he says. look at that right there. we have new reporting this morning into how he s trying to make this happen. he s been deploying five trusted allies to negotiate with these kind of republican so-called rebels here, trying to figure out what are the concessions that would be needed to peel off the votes for him to get there, even after they ve been negotiating for a matter of weeks now. listen to what one republican defector had to say this morning? it remains to be seen. i want a resolution. i want us to elect a speaker. another wrinkle this morning, you have former president donald trump giving kevin mccarthy his strongest endorsement yet, writing on socia
the ghost of ali present. exactly. the new reporting that we have from myself and others is that they re going to try or that there s a desire to do a motion to adjourn until tomorrow. it would benefit the mccarthy side, it would give them more time to negotiate, it would also save them another embarrassing round where either nothing has changed or they just lose, again, in their quest for speakers. democrats are likely to whip against this, but it s also not clear that all republicans would be on board, specifically this 20-member coalition that we keep talking about, the ones that are voting against mccarthy. some of them have even tweeted what happens at noon today? this is scott perry specifically, he said what happens at noon today? i don t know, but i m not backing down. so it s not necessarily assure thing that these members of the freedom caucus, will let mccarthy buy themselves more time. what will be the incentive
very interested to see if they have a note at noon because they have to, weather they lost anybody. freedom caucus members are trying to put out the vibe that they re picking up members and that would obviously be a really bad sign. if the bottom i don t think the bottom is going to fall out. if you start seeing significant movement, that s when kevin mccarthy is in real trouble and he may not be able to get off the floor. they have to keep having these votes. let s talk about the potential for a consensus candidate. with the stipulation, let s all be real clear and real frank here that this is a highly, highly unlikely scenario, right? i think anna palmer said it best, it s a west wing, aaron sorkin thing that this can happen. you re talking with somebody whose name is being floated out there who is saying, i wouldn t rule it out, fred upton who is retired from michigan here. you talked with him just within the last hour or so. tell us more about what he said and about the pragmat
this whole house paralysis thing has given us a preview into what the next two years could look like with the house controlled by republicans considering the civil war in the party on full display. here s how mike lawler put it earlier today on this network. it looks like a game of chicken, but the bottom line here is this, the vast majority of the republican conference supporting kevin mccarthy for speaker. and we are not going to allow the conference to be held hostage by a handful of members. joining us now is washington post congressional investigations reporter, david jolly is back with us along with brendan buck. you noted in the post this morning that what we re seeing play out is the, quote, culmination of an internal divide that had in the past helped bring down the speakerships of republicans john boehner and paul ryan with members of the conservative house freedom caucus asking for a range of demands in exchange
writing on social media, vote for kevin, close the deal. telling punch bowl news, he s taken calls from republican. he s trying to whip for mccarthy. but here s the thing, even with donald trump s backing, still not clear how he s going to move the needle. we ve heard from president biden just in the last hour weighing in on what s happening. being pretty blunt about it. listen. a little embarrassing, he says. we ve got a team of reporters here, ali vitali, steve kornacki, anna palmer. the people who are kicking us off this morning, ali, let me start with you. i had a conversation with