alliance among them. at one point, a fight almost broke out on the house floor, but perhaps the most telling moment came at the very end. on his way out of the capital, at around two a.m. after finally taking his oath of office as speaker, mccarthy stopped to talk to reporters to give special thanks to a special someone. i do especially think president trump. i don t think anybody should doubt his influence. he was with me from the beginning, somebody wrote that out of what he was there, and he was all in. he was all in. kevin mccarthy maybe the speaker, but this is donald trump s house. built on the backs of trump s republican acolytes whose jobs depend on the support of donald trump s own base. but dynamics that were on display during a four-day speakership battle have continued to play out in the six months since. the chaos caucus republicans, many of whom are trump loyalists and some of whom participated in the attempt to deny mccarthy the speakership, brought the cou
as his investigation hones in on a chaotic oval office meeting during which trump and his allies discussed, among other things, appointing taboo, trump s lawyer, at the special counsel to investigate baseless claims of election fraud. joining me now is the former republican congressman from pennsylvania, charlie dent. the executive director and vice president of the congressional program at the aspen institute. also with us, steve bannon, the producer of the rachel maddow s show, and msnbc political contributor and author of the book, the impostors, how republicans quick governing and ceased american politics. congressman, i ve been wanting both of you, but congressman, they want to start with you. basically, with the title of steve s book, this isn t governing. there s no part of this is governing. on that night by mccarthy won the speakership, on january 7th, you wrote an op-ed for cnn titled, the deal mccarthy s truck wasn t inexplicable act of self destruction. in it, you wrote, qu