we are together. they ve sat there, they have laughed and they have chuckled and pointed fingers at us. you know what? as my friend from florida just said, we re together. neil: well, not quite all together right now. the 20 that are resisting kevin mccarthy remain about that now. we re about the halfway point of a ninth vote to see who will lead the house of representatives. looks like for the ninth time in a row, kevin mccarthy is going to have to suit up for number 10. that is if we get to a number 10. under others there, you can see 11 votes for someone other than kevin mccarthy. keep in mind the republican leader can shed no more than four of his republican colleagues. in this vote, as in the prior eight, he has failed to do so. chad pergram has the latest from capitol hill. chad? neil, this is the longest speaker election since 1923. the house is now taking the ninth vote for speaker. it must go to a tenth. the goal was for kevin mccarthy to move the dial today. p
capitol hill. chad? neil, this is the longest speaker election since 1923. the house is now taking the ninth vote for speaker. it must go to a tenth. the goal was for kevin mccarthy to move the dial today. patrick mchenry of north carolina says the speaker s race won t be resolved today. mccorr think supporters are staring down their opponents. i don t believe kevin mccarthy will back down. we ll do this for days, do this for weeks. it could go months. we can t back down to 20 people holding the rest of the house captive or hostage. there s starting to be questions as to whether or not mccarthy can ever get the votes to become speaker. some gop members are beginning to negotiate with democrats. those that oppose mccarthy embrace the house vote a rama. it s not dysfunction and it s not imperilling.
you ll have to take my word. i m open to crossing party lines. but it won t be for kevin mccarthy. so then the other argument was, well, maybe if a number of democrats just voted present and lowered the overall number of those voting, that that would be a means by which kevin mccarthy would have majority of that limited pool of people. but there would have to be some concessions to the democrats to get that, right? the concessions would be enormous. that s a nightmare scenario. that s not a scenario i want. i want us to come together as republicans, we can still be a team here. that scenario is very real. there s republicans that would do that. we cannot let that happen. neil: does it come back to congressman i wonder, you re closer to the situation. you ve been in those rooms. you ve been very clear with these people how you feel.
blow against a system that is hostile to conservatives that has contempt for its base voters and really limits the input of regular members in to the legislative process. we have come together. a healthy process for a couple months now only because we forced it because of the narrow margins. we were blown off. we came to kevin mccarthy in july and september and begged him to consider changes to how congress worked and fight against the democrat agenda. we were blown off because he thought he was going to have some huge margin where he didn t have to listen to the conservatives and the freedom caucus. however we negotiated better procedures. we ll be better for having developed a rules frame work that is popular across the conference. whatever speaker we come together, we ll see the better package and the country will be better off for it. neil: finally, and you ve been patient. if steve scalise were suddenly
ask us, can we make it none clearly that we re not going to change our vote so we can get called back in to conference and tell kevin mccarthy that he needs to withdraw so that we can begin to come together as a conference and put forth nominees, debate the nominees, vet the candidates and see who is the best person who represents neil: who could get those kind of numbers? the center of the conference and get us to 218 votes. neil: would it be an existing colleague? who could get the 200 votes now that we ve been seeing mccarthy getting? i think jim jordan might be the strongest contender. he s the most popular republican in the congress. he s very popular. he represents the conservative center, highly respected. anybody can block a speaker. it will take 218 to come together. individuals like byron donalds or kevin herns or jim banks or a