Number of 217 votes to win the gavel. Reporter do you think you have the votes on the floor today . We feel really good. We need to get a speaker today. We feel really good about where we are at. Steve kornacki will be with me to break down the vote from the big board. The latest nbc reporting on the breaking news that President Biden will leave tonight for israel and jordan to get humanitarian aid moving into gaza, Work On Releaing the hostages, and how gaza will look if hamas is removed. Hamas released a video of a hostage. The question, is it a signal that the terror group might be willing to deal . Good day, everyone. Im Andrea Mitchell in washington. A big day where the house is in session and ohio congressman jim jordan is the man of the hour. The Judiciary Chairmans bid for speaker is gaining steam within the House Republican conference. He is closing in on the 217 votes he needs to win. The battle for a man long viewed as the leader of House Revolutionaries to become second in line for the presidency, that is still very much in play. Joining me now, Garrett Haake and Steve Kornacki at the big board. Steve, just a second. Garrett, give us a refresher what we will see in the next hour. It will happen in the next hour or two. Tell us what jim jordan has been selling to win over his fellow republicans, especially the moderates. Reporter buckle up. We could be in for another historic day on the house floor. The doors have just opened. Members are starting to trickle in. What will be a series of votes after they go through opening the floor, the pledge, the prayer and so forth. I think we might see basically an Attendance Check Vote to see how many folks are here today. If that magic number will stay at 217. Then we will see nominating speeches for the candidates. Jim jordan, of course, the republican side. Hakeem jeffries will be the candidate for democrats. It wouldnt shock me if someone stands up to nominate Kevin Mccarthy. We know there are some republican holdouts against jim jordan who plan to vote for mccarthy as a protest vote. Some of the members are dug in. We will see that inperson Roll Call Vote like we saw so many times back in january where members will be asked to vote by name for Speaker Of The House. Just like in january, we will get an idea pretty quickly whether jordan is on a path to get to 217 as we get through the early part of the alphabet when folks who are antijordan holdouts will cast their vote. Complaints against jordan have run from his unwillingness to acknowledge joe biden winning the presidency, ken bucks complaint, to questions about how he would handle a possible Government Shutdown. Thats the concern of some of the appropriators. To the way he handled Steve Scalise and Kevin Mccarthy, the last two nominees for this position, some of the loyalists of those men feel like jordan bulldozed through them to get to this moment. As the house comes to order, andrea, we will see where the votes land this afternoon and possibly late this evening. Thanks so much. As the house comes to order, here is Steve Kornacki. We have been here before. What will you be watching for this time around . Andrea, garrett set the stage. What you are looking at here and as this vote progresses, when its taken, what you will be able to see here is we have put a big list together here. These are all republicans. These are republicans who have either indicated opposition to jim jordan, an intent to vote against him on this first ballot, or who havent said anything. Some of them we expect will end up being with jordan. They just havent made public pronouncements. The list we have got here is nearly 60 members long. Its going to be very interesting to see how many of these nearly 60 republican names you see here actually do publically vote against jim jordan on this first ballot. In terms of the math, the way this works here is, to become the Speaker Of The House, you need a majority of all members who are present in the chamber and critically who cast a ballot for somebody by name. They are called upon. They could vote for anybody they want. They could also vote present. If they vote present, it affects the math. Coming into today, there are 221 seats held by republicans. 212 seats that are held by democrats. Theres news that one florida republican, who is a supporter of jim jordan, will be absent at least for the afternoon. If that is the case, there would be 220 republicans perhaps in the chamber. The democrats have indicated all their members are present. If there were 220 republicans, 212 democrats voting on this first ballot, that would be a total of 432 votes cast. If they are all cast for a member by name, then you need a majority, which would be 217. Again, if there are 220 republicans present from this giant list right here, when you get to three defections for jordan, he reached his limit. A fourth defection, he cant win this thing on the first ballot. Again, as garrett is saying based on the public pronouncements we are hearing, the real question on this first ballot seems to be not if jordan will get it but how far from it he will be. Maybe as a point of reference, you could think back to january when Kevin Mccarthy had to go all those rounds to become the speaker. On the initial couple rounds of voting, in january, there were 19 republicans who voted for somebody besides Kevin Mccarthy. 19 was the number there. It will be interesting to see here, i think very important to see how the jordan number compares to that potentially. Again, a number of these members here don bacon from nebraska who will be called early, have indicated opposition to jordan. How many more end up joining . Where does that number end up landing when you get through the roll call . See how it compares to Kevin Mccarthy. We will be tracking in real time all of these republicans in particular as the vote comes in. You will see right here on this screen who they have voted for. Keep in mind, if you see four of these republicans who for somebody besides jim jordan, then jim jordan cant, assuming all the democrats vote for Hakeem Jeffries, then jim jordan cannot win on this first ballot. Thank you so much, steve, for doing the math, setting the stage. Garrett, lets talk about some of the crosscurrents here. There are 14 minutes left on this call to make sure everyone is there. One person missing is a congressman who says he has a family funeral. He will eventually vote. Its 220 perhaps on this first ballot, 221 later in the day when he is able to join. Theres been fierce, fierce campaigning and lobbying and arm twisting by jim jordan. He started the Freedom Caucus. He was the revolutionary, set the place on fire during the impeachment when he was chairman of judiciary up against the Impeachment Push by the democrats against donald trump and has been really tough. What a lot of people are saying is the moderates are saying, this has gone on long enough. We have to vote for jim jordan. We dont like it. They got squishy because the Republican House cannot continue to stop congress and the government from doing anything, especially with two hot wars. Reporter thats exactly right. Part of what Kevin Mccarthy sold his membership on and part of what made him speaker for the time he was able to hold on to that position was that he was viewed as part of his job as protecting front line members, his members who won in joe Biden Districts. Its why mccarthy never formally endorsed donald trump. He did everything but. Jim jordan does not operate under that same set of principals. He is probably the most single members supporting donald trump. He argued it was stolen from donald trump. He has been trying to tell members he wont necessarily lead from that direction. But they have so much history with him as jordan the Freedom Caucus member, the shutdown proponent, the trump supporter, that its hard for them to get there. I think of someone who was Kevin Mccarthys star recruit in this congress, a Freshman Member from arizona, won in a biden district, young, hispanic, diverse. The idea of a modern Republican Party. He posted on twitter today that he will be voting for jim jordan for the reasons you just laid out. Its time for congress to get back to work and they have too many important issues to attend to. They cannot attend to any until they have a speaker. Its votes like that that democrats and their Campaign Committees are going to try to hang around the necks of folks like the new york republicans we talk about who are going to be at least in this moment forced to embrace the jim jordan of old before we find out if a speaker jordan behaves or conducts himself in any different way than what we have come to expect from him as the Judiciary Chairman and bomb thrower before that. Stay with us, Garrett Haake, Steve Kornacki. Joining us is michael steele, former press secretary, brendan buck and fred upton. Brendan, you know jim jordan. Is the jim jordan who refused any compromise going to be able to if he became speaker sit down, negotiate with the president of the united states, with the senate, both houses, both parties and come up with a continuing resolution . He has been against them all along. The reality is thats the job. The jim jordan we have known for many years is incompatible with the job of speaker. Thats something that he is going to have to figure out. Very quickly after we get a speaker, if we get one today, you are going to have to fund the government. At some point that requires working with the president , working with democrats in the senate. That is the type of thing jim jordan has worked his career against. Thats where the two things are going to clash. You cannot be a bomb thrower and only tear things down. My old boss john boehner said, he has never seen anybody tear things up more and not build up as he did with jim jordan. You cant operate like that. What j jordan has done his career has amassed a lot of power without any real responsibility. This is a change for him. Now the weight of the country is on him. People will be looking for him to get things done. I think he is going to find out the hard way just fighting doesnt do anything. Eventually, you have to get in fred, you served for more than 35 years in the house. Take us inside the caucus. What we are hearing from our reporter inside the chamber watching the vote count is that there are moderate holdouts. I would say that thats pretty accurate. There will be others that may vote for Somebody Else and not for jordan. I expect its going to be, as i say, a squeaker speaker election here. I dont think jordan is going to get it on the first vote, first ballot. Im not sure he is going to get it on the second or third, either. A lot to be determined by how many votes against him are there going to be on the republican side . All the democrats will vote for Hakeem Jeffries. Are there going to be 10, 15 republicans that vote no on the first round . Then on the second round, assuming that thats accurate, how many of those stick for the second ballot and maybe even the third . Then after the third ballot, then i think they have to go to a plan c, if jordan does not get the 217. Thats whether they will look at someone like mchenry or cole to see if we have divided government. Is there a way they can provide some relief that might lure democrats to say, enough is enough, lets join with most of the republicans to try to get things done. You have some huge issues. Lets face it, the world is on fire between israel and ukraine. We have a cr where no negotiations have taken place for the last couple weeks, a looming deadline on November 17th. Remember, whatever they decide, you have to get 60 votes in the senate to get it done. Its not just the republican vote. You gotta get bipartisanship. I dont think that jordan is capable of getting bipartisanship on really any major issue, certainly based on the years that i served with him. Michael steele, lets talk about that. Youve got people like mchenry, the Interim Speaker pro tem. Theres talk of democrats getting together with other republicans, the more moderate republicans, lets say, and authorizing him to have the power to bring something to the floor, to bring a supplemental for israel and ukraine, for instance, to the floor. Right now he doesnt have that power. Theres no organization at the house. Mike mccall, from texas, the republican chair of homeland security, he has worked with democrats for years and years on foreign policy, he is used to doing bipartisan things exactly on that. He is a tough guy but someone that i could see the democrats supporting as a backup if we are three rounds down. Thats a long way off though. Michael . It is. I dont see any of that as viable, because if it were, thats the first play. Why not go and create that narrative from the front end . Nobody in the house wants jim jordan as speaker. Can we be honest about that . Nobody. Not republicans. Not democrats. But the republicans have backed themselves into such a corner that to brendans point, where are they to go . They could attach to tom cole or anyone else, but they didnt, because that vote isnt there. The expectation we need to be clear about this. It goes to what brendan was saying how john boehner pegged jim jordan from day one. Jim jordan is not about governing or managing this house. This is about how theyre going to try to push through an agenda that has no resiliency beyond the house itself. Its going to die on its way to the senate. What does that mean for us . Thats the struggle that we now find ourselves in, watching this narrative unfold and acting and pretending like theres a plan c, plan d. There is none. There is none beyond jim jordan. Watching from the gallery, jim jordan, according to kyle stewart, in the gallery, jim jordan is circulating, shaking hands of supporters, some of whom are recent supporters. The last weekend has shown a lot of pickup for jordan. Ali vitali caught up with him in the corridors. Ali . Reporter thats exactly right. We did catch up with jordan as he was making his way to the floor here just in the last hour or so. I will play for you the optimistic notes he was sounding with me. Watch. Sir, do you think you have the votes on the floor today . We feel really good. We need to get a speaker today. We feel really good about where we are at. Reporter what are some of the concerns you have heard . We have been picking up support every day. Again, i feel confident. Reporter look, jordan is right there, andrea. He has been picking up votes over the weekend and into last night. Going into this morning, theres wideheld belief that he is within ten or 15 votes of getting where he needs to be. Ten to 15 votes doesnt get him to 217 which is, of course, still the magic number that we are watching all of the want to be speakers try to count to in their quest to actually get the gavel. As we watch him circulate on the floor, theres a question of how many ballots it will take, how long until the fatigue sets in. A feature of the jordan strategy is taking this out from behind closed doors, from behind a secret ballot, and putting it into the public view on the house floor. That doesnt mean that on the first ballot he is going to get the number he needs. But it does mean the calculation is that as the balloting rounds go on my understanding from jordan sources is that he is prepared to go on this for several ballots knowing the realities of this republican conference. The strategy is to see if the fatigue and public pressure can break some of the folks who say they dont want to vote for jordan now, but maybe that wanes in the form of a present vote or in a possible yes. To Garrett Haake, from what you are looking at as you watch the vote, has he picked up any significant votes in this early balloting . Reporter no. At this point, we are trying to get folks into the room. The most significant thing to me is who is not there yet. Im waiting for Kevin Mccarthy to march from the office that used to be his in which he still occupies down the hall over my shoulder to the floor. Mccarthy still has some influence in this process. There are several of these holdouts who say they will only vote for him. They are waiting for Kevin Mccarthy to tell them to do otherwise. They have been saying that for several days. We are in the hour of the voting and those members have not been released by Kevin Mccarthy to vote for jim jordan or anyone else. The longer that goes on and the closer to the voting with that being the case, you start to wonder why. Is there any reason why these votes would remain outstanding beyond hurt feelings . Is there an effort in place to see if jordan cant get there, perhaps the mccarthy round two dream survives somehow. Perhaps there are discussions about if not jordan, who. I think thats unlikely. Everything that ali laid out is the direction we are most likely to head in. The weight of the conservative machinery behind jordan right now gives him, i think, every conceivable advantage going into this vote. As we have seen before and as we are continually reminded up here, anything can happen, especially if the few holdouts drag things on much later. Steve kornacki, as you look at the quorum call this is about a minute left, as we can see on the monitor. What do you think at this stage, just in terms of how many are present so far, whether they will have to call another quorum c