the shortest was thomas pomeroy, one day, he was elected as kind of a go away present from his colleagues. we re hoping the republicans are, that on the floor, they tell me, they ve got they re hoping kevin mccarthy makes it past tom pomeroy. laura: bret, this is just i mean, i love this because it s fascinating, but people are actually kind of into this so it s really cool and we really love having you on. thanks so much and joining me now, maryland congressman andy harris. he flipped his support to mccarthy on the 13th vote. congressman i saw you on the air earlier today. you were so articulate again and so clear laying out the issues that i think got really obscured in some of the personality battles of the last few days, but in the end, why did you flip your vote from against to for mccarthy? well, laura i think we hammered out what s going to be
the vote he missed earlier votes today. harmeet i want to start with you because you want to be part of transformational change in washington. a lot of people thought, well, how dare you challenge an incumbent like ronna mcdaniel. you ll never win. you have no shot. everything s already written in stone. these 19 or 20 holdouts actually did seem to get some pretty important concessionss in the end. your thoughts tonight? well, absolutely, laura. this is how our process is supposed to work and for too many years in dc in multiple conservative institutions, there really has been no challenge to leadership. there hasn t been challenge to leadership in the senate for a decade and the rnc for 12 years and here we re seeing some very healthy debate. so i have no problem with the house taking a couple of days to hash through all of these issues, get hopefully a package that actually does pass. so even if mccarthy wins this vote, we still have to see the
vote, which will happen in the early hours of the night, on the rules package which was the impetus for a lot of these changes. but the debate itself is very important and i think it s going to be a big improvement in the house for the conservative wing of the party and for a constitutional approach to passing legislation. laura: raymond, this idea that power just keeps perpetuating itself in washington with very little in put from the public. obviously mitch mcconnell has been in washington for decades, very powerful, very, very cany and very smart. but there was no real discussion, was there raymond, about whether someone else should step forward? you know, he s 80-something years old, been around for a long time. it was just assumed, no, mitch mcconnell s going to be, you know, the senate minority leader. but a lot of people say, nothing against him, but why? why? laura, a lot of this is about fund raising.
jeffries [cheers and applause] laura: joining us now is north carolina congressman bishop who changed his vote to support mccarthy on the 12th ballot. congressman it looks like the democrats pep rally is going to be coming to an end tonight but you met with mccarthy, i understand, right before this vote. can you tell us something about what happened behind closed doers? well, laura, as you may be aware, we ve been working, group of 20 that were original holdouts, were working to change the way the house operates. and we ve got an agreement to do that. and what we ve been working on is nailing down every piece of that agreement. and we ve met with leader mccarthy immediately before coming to the floor for a final conclusion of that agreement. so it is, as one person who s in position to know told me today, it s a transformational
hakeem jeffries. green of georgia. mccarthy. laura: all right. well, matt gaetz is back on floor. we re going to go to bret baier who s going to do quick math as to where we are. suspense building on speaker s vote we re on the 14th vote now. what can you tell us. it s like algebra and like chad said it s like math, because you have these numbers shifting depending on how many people are on the floor. you had gaetz now back on the floor. there may be some suspense that he wants to be, when they recall the people who didn t vote the first time that he s the person that votes present and puts mccarthy over, but let s just do the math. assuming that you have ken buck there and hunt, that would be 434 total. the majority then, if you had present votes, three present votes, takes you to 431, so 216