than the country. . i appreciate your time. dateline white house picks up with nicole right now. it s 4:00 in new york and yes, it s groundhog day, the crisis in the house of representatives and the united states of america is in its third day. there still no speaker of the house of representatives which means there are no members of the house of representatives. that despite and evening of negations. kevin mccarthy has lost eight votes to be speaker and is on track right now to lose the ninth vote. that s despite making a series of unbelievable concessions, things that were off the table sunday night and into monday, to the holdouts in his car gets caucus, a major allowance to the hard right republicans, he said he would lower the number from 5 to 1. he said he previously not accept that. congress and matt gaetz, he nominated donald trump for the speakership and described the power to remove the speaker as anyone, anywhere, anytime, raising questions about whether anybod
said he would lower the number from 5 to 1. he said he previously not accept that. congress and matt gaetz, he nominated donald trump for the speakership and described the power to remove the speaker as anyone, anywhere, anytime, raising questions about whether anybody whether it s mccarthy or somebody else can remain speaker for long. mccarthy has not moved the needle at all. he s failed to persuade anyone of the members who have been refusing to vote for him and vote after vote after vote over the past three days. the dysfunction that s playing out on capitol hill today, and we will debate if that s the right word anymore, on the second anniversary of the attack on the u.s. capitol is
deniers holding their own party hostage. and i think that is really extraordinary. and this is the story of kevin mccarthy and the republican party. and i m really glad that you keep playing this out. this is not some group of bomb throwers against the grown-ups. this is not extremists against the establishment. kevin mccarthy has embraced and empowered the lunatic wing of his own party. if he becomes speaker, he will enpower marjorie taylor greene. so here you have this moment of extraordinary irony. in many ways, this is peak trumpism that you re seeing right now. and trump himself sitting down in brooding isolation in mar-a-lago is suddenly realizing that he can t control it. he didn t start this fire. it was a preexisting condition, but donald trump, like so many other republicans, thought they could control it.
they aren t already there. i think that s the danger, the desire to provide that spectacle and engage in confrontation overtakes the substance completely. and charlie, to nick s point, i guess the twist this season in right wing lunacy is that it s intraparty, right. the nemesis now is kevin mccarthy, who was the chief he was a human shield for all of the high jinks of most of the extreme elements of his caucus for the last few years. that s right. he thought he could appease them. he thought he could become speaker if he decided to cozy up to the marjorie taylor greenes and signed on the every single letter that they wrote in terms of election denial, if he ran down to mar-a-lago and sucked up to donald trump. and none of it is working. what is interesting and by the way, nick of course is right there. are some substantive issues involving regular order,
the other thing we are saying, this divergence between those who seem sincere-ish and their willingness to get to an agreement with mccarthy i would put chip roy maybe scott perry in that camp, they are saying less and negotiating more behind closed doors. on the other side are lauren boebert, matt gaetz, machine, those voting for donald trump or kevin hern, they seem to be trying to convey two things, that they are really committed to not ever voting for kevin mccarthy and i think by nominating hern trying to open the door to somebody who might be more acceptable to the party then byron donald has been, hern lisa largest caucus within