the union. mom and baby are doing great and both are gorgeous. our coverage continues with wolf blitzer in the situation room. happening now, donald trump and nikki haley are making final appeals in new hampshire with the republican presidential race now a two-person showdown. and the first primary votes just hours away. we re following the candidates and the contest that could effectively decide the gop nomination. plus, a cnn exclusive interview with vice president kamala harris. she is speaking out about the biden campaign, throats democracy and whether she s personally worried about a repeat of violence on january 6th. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. first, the countdown to the high stakes new hampshire primary. the granite state now holding extraordinary power to speed or slow donald trump s march to the republican presidential nomination. cnn s jeff zeleny has more from salem, new
i m ann marie walker. i m alex march quart in for boris sanchez. the house of representatives finally elects a speaker. how kevin mccarthy gets the votes. remarkable progress for damar hamlin and the moment he face timed his teammates from his hospital bed. and new details on the horrific murder of four idaho college students. what we re learning from a recently released affidavit and the father of one of the victims tells cnn why he believes the group was targeted. plus, the fda grants approval for a new alzheimer s drug. the reported benefits and the concern coming up on cnn this morning. it is saturday, january 7th. thank you so much for waking up with us. thank you so much for having me back. alex, it s great to be with you. we re matching. we re in lock step together. good to be with you, alex. happy new year. and to you. thank you so much. who needs reality tv when you have cspan. cnn after days of deadlock, 15 ballots and a lot of deal making, republi
the gentleman from the state of california and the next speaker of the 118th congress, kevin mccarthy. [ cheers and applause ] kevin mccarthy grabbing the gavel after 15 rounds of voting. it was the longest speaker contest in 164 years. despite sometimes contentions and negotiations with the narrow faction of his conference, republicans in the end rallied around mccarthy and his vision for america. i make this promise i ll never give up for you, the american people. and i will never give up on keeping our commitment to america. our nation is worth fighting for. our rights are worth fighting for. our dreams are worth fighting for. cnn s eva mckend is live on capitol hill. eva, what finally pushed mccarthy over the edge for these republican holdouts? reporter: well, he was able to convince those never-kevin lawmakers ultimately vote present and that is how he secured this victory on the 15th try, fred, but also by making some key concessions. so, for instance, those
john, thank you very much. and you guys, everyone is not going to want to miss this. new cnn original series, giuliani, what happened to america s mayor, premiers this sunday, back to back episodes. cnn this morning continues now. i would love to know, but we re working through it and made progress today. three days into this, the longest since the 1850s. well, i have the longest speech on the floor so i like to make history. another round, but the question is, is it the last call for kevin mccarthy? good morning, everyone. caitlyn live in washington, d.c. at capitol hill once again. this is becoming my new home. i miss you guys. do i still have a chair in the studio? bring her chair back. she s coming back on monday. i swear if you re not here, we re coming there. yeah, it s remarkable. day four of the speaker s election. don, as you see what s playing out here. it certainly is. the house will be on their 12th vote when they reconvene in just a few hours. m
concessions he made to them in order to get their votes? reporter: jake, that is really starting to come into focus. the number of concessions and promises that kevin mccarthy has made over the course of the negotiations has been quite outstanding, and i should caution that this stuff has not been put on paper. there has not been anything put out that we have seen. this is based on the reporting from me and my fantastic hill team. but i just want to walk you through just to give the viewers a sense of what has been agreed to and what a kevin mccarthy speakership could look like. the big one is he agreed for any single member to be able to call for a vote on ousting the sitting speaker. that s something he used to say he would never budge on. now any member could call for that vote. he s agreed that his leadership pack is not going to play in primaries to try to beat conservatives, at least in safe districts. that s something conservatives have complained about in the past.