bitter conflict among house republicans. former minority leader kevin mccarthy is being opposed by landful of lawmakers who are refusing to support him. a number that increased by one on the last balloting for speaking. chad pergram has been following this all day minute by minute. he tells us where things stand tonight from a chaotic capitol hill. good evening, chad. bret, as you say. the most chaos for the beginning of a congress in 100 years. it marked a foreboding start for a g.o.p. majority which promised big things in the midterms. the house voted all afternoon. kevin mccarthy lacks the votes to become speaker. mccarthy and his allies are determined to keep voting and wear down his opponents. are you going to stay in the race, leader mccarthy. yes. i m not going anywhere. look, i have the record for the longest speech ever on the floor. i don t have a problem getting a record for the most votes for speaker, too. there were only five g.o.p. members officially opp
this. so, yeah, i m ecstatic. i would rather be in a psych ward than be on the floor of the house today. bret: what do you think happens? look, i got bad news for kevin s opponents. he has got a lot more than 20 friends. so, there are more than 20 people that are going to say you know what? we are not ever voting for anyone else. bret, you got a guy who has got 200 votes and the next leading vote getter for very good reasons doesn t want to be the speaker of the house. and, yet, this kamikaze wing within the republican party knows better than 85% of the rest of the conference. jimmy doesn t want the job for very good reason. i don t know what happens. i will say this. they didn t want a secure border. that is not what the negotiation was over, bret. handful of people want gravels and can t get it based on merit and intelligence but they want it given to them by the speaker of the house and kevin said no.