0 and got word they are they are now going into a ninth vote. john: this will tie 1923, except they got a speaker on the ninth vote in 2023. sandra: unbelievable. the house floor on capitol hill, drama continues. i m sandra smith in new york. john: i m john roberts. i have a sense something will move in the next couple of days. martha with the martha: good afternoon. i m martha maccallum. moments ago, house republican leader kevin mccarthy failed the eighth time to secure enough votes to become the speaker of the house. that small republican faction blocking him shows little signs of budging in their position at this hour. so both sides of the gop fight are here with us on the story today. michael waltz supporting kevin mccarthy for speaker. dan bishop does not. we ll hear from congressman elect burgess owens from utah. that s coming up. first to chad pergram with the back story and that back room dealings and going on. kevin mccarthy has yet to show progress in the firs
told me more about why kevin mccarthy is not as popular as he d hoped with some republicans. this group on the hard right don t trust him, they don t see kevin mccarthy as one of them, and they are basically right about that. kevin mccarthy is someone who at least initially hailed from the more moderate establishment wing of the gop. the complication for him is the republican majority is so small that those hard right members have a lot of leverage and they can frustrate him and have frustrated him today from any realistic chance of becoming speaker. so, could he drop out? i mean, from what will was saying, we ve heard from kevin mccarthy before, is that that is not something here s planning to do, but at some point this becomes a sort of indefensible position, doesn t it? it does, at some stage. i mean, if there is no erosion in the opposition to mccarthy, i think, honestly, he is going to have to drop out at some stage if you can t get there, you can t get there and wishful thinkin
own party of that, at least not yet. our candidate is jim jordan. he may not want it right now but george washington did not want to be president. he did what was right for his country. we have the numbers and sorry jim jordan we re going to make do you what s right for the country. we love you. peter: because of this process the democrat leader hakeem jeffries actually getting the most votes each round. you can see mccarthy gets the second most. in the first round there was a smattering, biggs, jordan. donalds. republicans all consolidated 19 of them in the second round for jordan. in the third round he actually increased his total. he had 20 to mccarthy s 200. even though he says he doesn t want the job. the differences we may have. the differences between joyce and jordan or biggs and bacon, they pale in comparison to the difference between us and the left which now unfortunately controls the other party. so we had better come together.
secure the 218 votes he needs to become speaker. setting a backdrop for what could be the first multi ballot speaker battle in 100 years. mccarthy can only afford to lose four votes, and those majors margins might be on his silence piling up on congressman-elect but george santos. he had lunches for to mccarthy. now, democrats are calling on santa suit resigned before sworn in on to say, before it was revealed he lied on his resume. details about s education, work history, ethnic background, and faith. he has not responded to nbc s request for comment, but he has apologized and admitted to quote, embellishing his resume. joining me now is jasmine roth she, executive director of swing left, and lucy caldwell, back with, us political strategist and campaign shuttered for joe walsh s 2016 campaign, presidential campaign. lucy, the new york times here with new reporting that over the course of his campaign, santos spent $30,000 on hotels,
majority. they wrote in a letter to colleagues, such quarrels delay our ability to establish a working majority in the people s house. make no mistake. we will not allow this conference to be dragged down a path to a paralyzed house that weakens our hard-fought majority. no serious challenger to mccarthy has emerged yet. but if not for lack of trying. the anti-mccarthy group has been having informal talks with republicans gaging their interest. that includes steve scalise, the number two republican as well as jim jordan, in line to chair the jewish which committee and tom emmer, the majority bhip next year. all three said they are not interested, they are backing mccarthy, won t challenge him outright. however, it is unclear what would happen on january 3rd if mccarthy doesn t get to the 218 votes or drops out of the race. it s expected any number of republicans would want to throw their hat into the ring. a whole lot of uncertainty right now hanging over the speaker s