Good morning. Welcome, Axios, today. It's January 4th and it's Wednesday. I'm Nailabudu.

Here's what we're following. China reels from a COVID surge. But first, chaos in the

house and the mutiny against McCarthy. That's today's one big thing.

I hope you'll vote for Kevin McCarthy and that's why I'm proud to nominate him for

Speaker of the House. Maybe the right person for the job of Speaker of the House isn't

someone who wants it so bad. This is not personal. It's not. This is about the future of the

country. A speaker has not been elected. The house stands during until noon tomorrow.

Sounds from the US House convening for the 118th Congress yesterday. But after three rounds

of voting on Tuesday, there's still no Speaker of the House. Republicans are at a stalemate.

In this afternoon, they'll try again as California Republican Kevin McCarthy still fights for the top spot.

Axios's Steph Kite has been covering this from Capitol Hill and is here with the latest. Hey, Steph. Hi, Naila.

So at the last tally, 20 Republicans refused to vote for Kevin McCarthy. You were on the hill yesterday. What was the mood like?

You know, there is definitely some frustration you could sense from Republicans. Definitely a determination

from those who were opposed to McCarthy that they were going to try to get their way. And interestingly, you know, when you looked at the

Democratic side of the chamber, there was quite a lot of laughter and some light mockery. People seem to be having a pretty good time as they continue to cast their own votes for

Hawking Jeffries over and over and over again. What do we know about the GOP members who were unwilling to vote for Kevin McCarthy? You know, these are

really the far right flank of the Republican Party and really are looking for more power. That's what this really all comes down to is they are looking to assert their power to gain spots

on the key committees. They're trying to show that they don't just want to go along with, you know, what the rest of the Republican Party wants.

They really are trying to signal that they are pushing for the things that they think are most important. And really, it does boil down to being a sort of power grab.

Access is deaf kite. Thanks, Steph. Thanks, Tyler.

Turning now to Axios co founder and AM author Mike Allen for some context, Mike, the longest speaker election in American history was in 1856. And it took two months in 133 ballots to get to a speaker of the house.

How big of a deal is what we saw unfold yesterday and do we expect this is going to take months?

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