not simply a democracy at. we re but something that could actually destroy american democracy, another hour of velshi begins right now. hi begins right now. good morning, it is sunday january the 8th. i am ellen kevin mccarthy s new election as the speaker of the house, it was a historic one if not exactly for the best reasons. the first time for a speakership was divot sided on a multiple, ballots are where occurrence in the scope of all american history. mccarthy s bid this year was only the 15th time that has happened, it was 15 ballots but it was only the 15th time that it is happened. there were only four other instances when the volker shut went on for longer, all of which were in the 1800s, which was an era in which political parties were influx and factions were ideologically split over the issue of slavery. take the 16th congress as an example. henry clay was initially elected as the speaker at the start of the term and 1819 but, he opted to step down in the midd
to deal with the drawing extremism in its ranks. it is fracturing their party and we are witnessing it in realtime. joining me now is joanne freeman, she is a professor of history in american studies at yale university, she is the president of the society for historic indians of the early american republic, she is the co-host of the public now and then and the author of the book field of blood, violence in congress in the war to the civil road. professor freeman, it is good to see you, i have to tell you it was probably one in the morning on saturday, stephanie ruhle and i were sitting on tv. and suddenly in the corner of the screen, we saw someone lunge at matt gates and someone grabbed, ended up being mike rogers a congressman from alabama, and someone grabbed him and pull him back. and then the camera panned over, i wonder if we can put this on tv, but the camera pans over to mccarthy who was walking back to his seat, heard something turned around and walked back. and we definitely