The republican side and democrats, of course, but also i think in the eyes of the public and hes still not going to get it . It was actually the core of gaetzs speech was that mccarthy had, what did he say selling shares of himself. And one of the people i assume he tried to sell shares of himself to was matt gaetz. Yes, i mean, this group owns many of those shares and yet they are i think its amazing to people who buy shares or willingly take shares hes giving up attack him for that very act. Yes, but it does speak to this sense of not fearing mccarthy, a sense of lack of respect for mccarthy as a leader and i just dont see how he comes back from this. I think one of the things hes done is approach this with the air of inevitability, right . He goes foo the 11th hour and said i earned it. Its owed to him. Thats not something theyve taken too kindly too. Watch the moderates, this sort of only kevinish. At some point do they say this is dragging the party through the muck and the mire and do they start to peel away. Some of them will but i get the sense so much is choreographed. For example, scott perry who put out that strong Statement Last night and today, he and jim jordan have always been really very close and, you know, the fact that jordan is with mccarthy, but so many of jordans allies are not with mccarthy, i mean this doesnt seem kosher. Theres something going on here. But they seem to have a better choreography than the mccarthy thats the stunning part. But to axelrods point, the midterm showed us voters were rejecting extremism, denialism, january 6th was a factor yet everyone gets that except for the House Republican caucus. Kevin mccarthy who slimly even won the majority thought he was the heir apart and wouldnt have a challenge is a huge strategic miscalculation, but he made the mistake rather than catering to his moderates to his Majority Makers and trying to build a coalition there he has made extraction after extraction and concession to the far right who are never going to be with him. He should have called john boehner and paul ryan if he wanted to know how it would go for him. If you are a member of the Freedom Caucus, this is a brilliant strategy from the limited perspective of wanting to flex your power. So they humiliate Kevin Mccarthy in a historic way and then, what, Steve Scalise becomes the speaker but he knows how serious these guys are, that if he makes one wrong move, he will very quickly be replaced. I want to go to Melanie Zanona standing by on the hill. Melanie, what are you hearing . Reporter as this vote has been dragging on, the anger and frustration inside the gop is really growing. I talked to one gop lawmaker who is supports mccarthy and theyre hearing from gop donors and constituents back home that the party looks, quote, stupid for not being able to elect a speaker and talked to another republican who said hes also promccarthy and predicted after three or four ballots theres going to be pressure for republicans to either adjourn the proceedings and try to regroup or try to figure out some sort of plan b strategy on the floor, so even though a lot of republicans were bracing for this to go to multiple ballots, they are still in disbelief and they are just furious that all of this drama is overshadowing their new majority. I talked to a third republican who said they are embarrassing the whole team. We should form a parking Lot Committee and put them on it. So clearly the anger is palpable and i do expect there to be retribution for mccarthys opponents whenever they finally settle all of this. All right, melanie, thanks so much. How does i mean, do people leave it up to Kevin Mccarthy to decide, okay, enough is enough, im going to take my hat out or do people does somebody go to him . Sooner or later there will have to be a conversation about whats good for the institution and whats good for the country. And so, again, we have this standoff where mccarthys backers are fighting these 19 and at some Point Somebody will have to blink but they have to think about, you know, the institution of the congress, the house itself. Because it looks this looks terrible. The american public, youve already heard donors calling, saying, whats going on . Theres no organization obviously so at some point, i think some of the adults in the republican conference will have to say we have to end had. Thats not the 19. No . Thats the other group. Thats what im saying. Theyll have to go to him its simple. You cant win. Its over. Were not going to vote for you another round because we cant. Were going to scalise. Yeah, or wherever theyre going to go. Right. So institution, country, both of those things should be paramount, but as you know, charlie, dont put it past a member of congress to put first and foremost their own reelection and if youre in one of these Swing Districts in the Hudson Valley or on long island, you are not going to want to send a message for too long to the American People and to the people who elected you in particular that you cant even elect a leader of your caucus let alone fulfill the promises that you ran on. Well, the longer that Kevin Mccarthy stays in, the more he weakens the future speaker. Because its only going to require more concessions to flip these votes so, what, does the motion to vacate get down to two votes . Thats what gaetz was asking for. What it will effectively do whoever ultimately becomes speaker will be facing votes of no confidence left and right. For the sake of the institution you would hope that his moderates are going to him and saying, we need to get together on who the consensus candidate is. The obvious choice would be a Steve Scalise. Alyssa, isnt it at this point clear that for the 19 to come along, or enough of them that theyre going to have to embrace now the conditions that mccarthy negotiated. Hes basically negotiated the terms of surrender and its just a question of whether theyll going to surrender you know, he re hes going to negotiate an even worst rules package for the future speaker. Thats the only way hes flipping votes. Jake, 19 votes, there for jim jordan so far. Back to you. Well, i think, anderson, its fair to say that we are on track for a very similar vote in the second ballot that we had in the first ballot. 212 for the democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, 203 for the republican leader, Kevin Mccarthy, and total of 19 antimccarthy republican votes, in this case, dana bash, they are all coalescing around one candidate instead of four or five as they did in the first ballot but they havent seemed to move the needle one way or the other, 19 antimccarthy. Enough to deny him the speakership but not gaining the momentum they need, nor by the way is Kevin Mccarthy. No, this is a message sending vote right now. Both, i should say, by the 19 so far for jim jordan and also for the 173 so now 74, 5 for Kevin Mccarthy. Because i think that, you know, we understandably have been talking so much about the, you know, dozen plus members who are causing this chaos by saying were not going to vote for mccarthy. But were not focusing also on the very large number for mccarthy and its not because mccarthy has so many people who adore him in his conference, its because those people for the most part, there are people who really like him and want him to be speaker but this is largely about trying to show the 19 were not backing down to you, were not giving in to you but will keep voting for Kevin Mccarthy. Thats a dynamic happening on the house floor. Let me bring in former Republican Congressman rodney davis. We are up here on this set, congressman, texting our contacts, republicans and i know you have even more contacts than we do, having been a former member of the House Republican caucus. I am being told when i ask republican members of congress, whats going to happen now, i have no idea. That is the response. What are you hearing . Well, ive heard that but ive also heard this is going to be a long night. That Kevin Mccarthy and more importantly the 85 of the republican conference who voted for him to be speaker are digging in. They do not want to give these 19 members a win because they will have no leverage going into a brandnew majority. Theres really nothing more kevin can give. I mean, kevin has given on the rules package more than what any of the 85 wanted him to give. So now its time to see if those 85 are going to stand strong. There is absolutely no discussion right now in those ranks of a new candidate, so this is going to be a long night and i think pressure is going to begin to bill on democrats who may decide to leave the chamber if these votes continue to go which then lessens Kevin Mccarthys threshold. Very interesting. And jamie gangle . Im just shaking my head for this reason. The Kevin Mccarthy allies may want to say to the 19, you know, were going to just keep voting and voting and voting, but if these 19 or even 5 of the 19 dont change their vote and we think that there are five never kevins, then it doesnt matter what the Kevin Mccarthy allies want and the Republican Party is looking dysfunctional and the business of government is not moving forward. So i just got one interesting text from a republican member of congress who shall remain nameless, what happens now . He wrote, we all have family up here for the swearing in. Lets just say many of us told our families to dress in their second best outfits today. [ laughter ] so, in other words, they were expecting this to not happen today. I just again, were all texting everybody trying to figure out a plan or whats the end result and nobody, nobody knows. I just got one from plugged in that it wont be scalise, mccarthy will keep them voting all night in my view. The question is to what end . Again, to what end . Its 19 right now which is what it was last time. We have a few more names to go through so essentially a status quo vote. We are in a status quo vote. In which, again, you look at that and say, okay, Hakeem Jeffries and Kevin Mccarthy, Kevin Mccarthy is obviously the strongest republican but as jamie noted it only takes 5 of those 19 to keep it going for days and days and days, the question is can republicans get in a room and figure out a plan z. Were past plan a and b and the answer right now is, no. Well, and getting in a room, that is a hard thing to do, actually, at this point because as long as this is going on on the house floor you need 218 people to vacate the house floor and adjourn the house and allow them to go into a back room and cut a deal so to a certain extent well have to see some of this actually play out in public if theyre going to get that far. First impressions matter. This is the First Impressions of the republican house. This is the first day of the second half of joe bidens term. This is the first day of the 2024 cycle and this is the message, not this is what we want to do for inflation, the border, immigration, this is our message about americas role in the world, this is how were different or better than biden. Thats what they wanted to do. Instead doing this. Let us underline, dana, how historic this is. This has not happened since 1923 when the then House Speaker, a republican, Frederick Gi GilletteKevin Mccarthy said hes given the longest speech in the House Of Representatives and if he is going to win with the highest number of ballot votes then so be it. Thats right. And so, look, the question is at one point does this been the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result . Were only on were on the second ballot . The second ballot. [ laughter ] everybody already lost track. And theres no sense that things will change. Things will only change when the people who are voting and those who feel like they have skin in the game feel that they have made their point, and nobody seems that theyre there right now. Theyve made their point. Hold on one second. Call the names of the representativeselect who did not answer the first call of the role. Theyre catching up, the people who didnt vote in the second ballot. I want to talk to manu raju who just spoke with one of the 19 rebels, Congressman Chip Roy, republican, of texas. Who voted for a colleague of his from florida on the first vote and voted for jim jordan on the second, manu, what did he have to say. Hes not moving off his opposition or aligning himself with a number of conservative member, hardliners who want a number of demands to strengthen the rank and file, weaken the speakership, things that Kevin Mccarthy says he already has agreed to but roy making clear to me that he is almost certainly not going to be in the mccarthy camp. The people of the table and the rules committee or otherwise guarantee that will enforce the rules we just talked about. By the way, everybody in that Republican Congress meeting this morning said, oh, we like the rules, good job, chip, you guys worked hard for the rules and then at the end they said but if you dont vote for mccarthy, were going to get rid of the rues. Its a game. Thats the game and actually put a quote on the board that said something in the zip code of, hey, for the part of trying to put people on the committee with diverse views and kevin said that but a whole lot of people in the room didnt want that. So what hes referring to is a Morning Meeting that occurred today in which Kevin Mccarthy tried to urge, to essentially arm twist these members into supporting him. That clearly backfired for people like chip roy saying essentially what they are suggesting, their threats and the like did not win them over, in fact, grew the opposition, had the opposite effect that mccarthy and his allies had wanted but mccarthys allies are indicating they are not moving either. I just talked to congressman mike lawler, incoming congressman who told me if it goes to 50 ballots he plans to stick with Kevin Mccarthy for 50 ballots, he said of those conservative foes what is their end game . Well keep voting and voting and guess what, we they dont have enough votes and we outweigh them so thats the question here, jake. Who will blink first . Right now mccarthy allies are saying they wont do it and neither will the conservatives and will there be some sort of cons consensus . At the moment no consensus candidate. Kevin mccarthy, 19 votes against him right now. He needs to keep that only to four. Unclear when or if it will happen. We heard manu talking to Congressman Chip Roy who seemed to suggest hes not blinking. I got a text, abby phillip, from 1 of the 203 viting for Kevin Mccarthy saying hell get the vote. Were not blinking either. To be fair, hallmark of this group of 19 and the folks who are kind of leading this charge is that its all about throwing a wrench in the machine but not actually solving any problems, who is the alternative . No one has really emerged who will actually have a shot of getting to 218. I think that that it is fair to put the onus on the never mccarthys and say who . Who is the person who is going to get there . Otherwise theyre going to be voting all night and maybe tomorrow until next year, until someone else emerges if its not going to be mccarthy. Heres the challenge if youre part of the what i would refer to as the governing wing, not necessarily moderate but people who actually want to get stuff done, right now jim jordan is sitting in that wing, the challenge is always that those people actually do want to see things happen. They want to bring deliverables home to their district. Thats what their voters are demanding if youre a republican in a biden district, thats what they need to get reelected. Those people ultimately will have more of an incentive to end this, i mean, i almost swore right there to end this show, you fill in the blank thats happening on the house floor because they have political incentives that line up with ending it and finding a speaker of the house. These 19 people and this has been the problem with dealing with the Freedom Caucus from, you know, john boehner to paul ryan right on down to where we are today is that they do not seem to care about that piece of it. They dont care about governing. Their selfinterests youve heard Narcissist Being used by many of their opponents in the Republican Party today, they care about as john has said appearing on right wing radio. What is their profile . The leverage and the ways that leadership used to have to get control of people like these 19 are basically gone and that means that for them, you know, sitting here and doing this 50 times, who cares . They dont have any skin in that game necessarily whereas all these people sitting with Kevin Mccarthy, they actually do and may get to a point where they have to say we got to make a change. This mccarthy ally just sent this to me. A quote from Congressman Guy Refr Refresh Refreshen that you willer. If they think it will be a game of chicken they will be sadly surprised. Well be here till Fourth Of July voting for