that. i think he definitely put something on us that we weren t expecting when we walked into the room. why do you think he dropped out? i don t know why he dropped out. because we just had a member session where all the members came together and we and myself and the other two candidates were there, kevin was there. and he was passionate about it. this was just an hour and a half before he announced he wasn t going to do it. so something happened obviously that convinced him. how many votes do you think you had? because as you know he could get the majority among house republicans, but the question is when it comes up for a formal vote at the end of the month you presumably didn t have enough to get the 218 you need, is that the reason? i don t know if that s the reason. i felt like he had certainly the majority of the votes. i did believe that. you think paul ryan is going to run for speaker against you? that i do not know. i m really not engaged with
this hour s breaking news, chaos on capitol hill after representati ivative kevin mcca the majority leader, the man everyone presumed would become the next speaker of the house shocked everyone by suddenly dropping out of the race. dana bash was up on capitol hill when mccarthy made his bombshell announcement. she joins us along with our senior washington correspondent jeff zeleny, gloria borger and cnn political contributor ryan lizza. dana, you re getting new information about a big push to try to get paul ryan to run for speaker. that s right. we have been talking about the idea that so many people just in the immediate moments after mccarthy made clear that he wasn t going to run everybody s name the name on everybody s
many conservative members were making in exchange for the votes in the freedom caucus would have made him too weak to be effective. tim s camp is some of 40 republicans in the house freedom caucus. how do we work together? we re working with a speaker and we presumed kevin was going to reach out to us and say what do we need to do? changes do we need to make? moderates worry it will be hard to find a republican member who will appeal to conservatives but still actually lead the entire house as the constitution requires the speaker to do. the next speaker should not apiece those who make unreasonable demands. there are a number of members of the conference that cannot get the yes on anything. daniel and jason chaffetz are a bit speechless. did not see that coming. but still in. because we need to find somebody that our whole body can unite behind and do what we were elected to do. so the question is now what?
he does not think that was the case and what mccarthy aids have been saying all day, he did not want to put his conference through a very tough vote to put him in the speaker s chair. a lot of these members from very conservative districts knew this could be a primary challenge, hurt them with the outside groups that don t like the party s leadership and really goes to show you if you re a member of leadership, it s so toxic these days with the conservative base that does not believe conservatives in washington are fighting hard enough, wolf. thanks very much. joining us now, peter king of new york. congressman, thanks very much for joining us. you said you were totally stunned by kevin mccarthy s withdrawal and several hours have passed. how do you explain his decision? misstatements or blunt statements about benghazi and hillary clinton? wolf, i don t think so. kevin spoke at a party conference at 8:00 this morning
about party unity. close to half the room didn t hear him say it and john boehner said, after kevin s statement, there won t be any votes today. confusion, shock and again, kevin is the type of guy, he s a popular guy. there was nobody gloating, except maybe a few people in the tea party. you heard congressman walter jones, a republican of north carolina have this letter saying if anyone has committed any misdeeds, his word misdeeds since being elected to the house of representatives, he should not have a leadership position. that was a stunning development, wasn t it? again, i don t think that s what we should get into at all. i know nothing about what walter jones might be talking about and quite frankly, you shouldn t be throwing stones because everybody lives in some kind of a glass house. to me, unless you have something to say, i wouldn t say it, unless you have something definite, don t say it at all and to put any kind of cloud out