no path to becoming speaker of the house because a bunch of conservative members of the republican conference have dug in against him. what has changed this morning? why should today be any different after the three failed votes yesterday? a couple things mccarthy is doing like send his allies fanning out across the conference, trying to get some members voting present instead of no. we ll talk about that in a second. keep in mind, the numbers here. mccarthy can only atord four defectors to become speaker. if everybody votes for a earn. he started with 19 tuesday. he finished off with 20. steve kornacki is going to join us to break down the math and tell us what to expect. another thing that s new today, former president trump getting off the fence to push fellow republicans to, i m quoting here, vote for kevin. close the deal. how much will that matter? we ll get into it because right now it is parls in the building behind me. nobody in charge. no end in sight. no work getti
your team point out, there s a lot of scar tissue built up between kevin mccarthy and some of these other members. how does that make a difference here? it makes a difference because it s nice to have another voice that s not mccarthy talking to these people. the people who he has tapped, patrick mchenry chief among them, have very deep experience in doing things like that. he was the chief deputy whip under steve scalise in the drama between him and kevin mccarthy that s dominated so much of the last decade of house republican politics. at times, scalise and mccarthy rivals. so what they are trying to do is trying to find out if a deal is possible. and then if they find out a deal is possible, they could then try to sell it to the broader conference, which is sick of giving in to the 10% of republicans that the