Good morning. It's Saturday, July 8th. I'm Ali Velshi. Kevin McCarthy's been Speaker of the House for six months, a position to which he was eventually elected after a marathon first week of Congress that involved 15 rounds of voting over four days.

Let's listen to the clerk.

It looks like we're done with the voting.

McCarthy's got the votes to win.

Smiling ear to ear.

He got the bottom line he was looking for.

It was a triumphant moment for McCarthy once he finally got enough votes in the early

hours of January 7th, but it was also a public embarrassment.

The whole episode exposed the rifts between the different factions of the Republican

conference and the uneasy 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

Capitol at around 2 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 want to especially thank President Trump.

I don't think anybody should doubt his influence.

He was with me from the beginning.

Somebody wrote the doubt of whether he was there, and he was all in.

He was all in.

Kevin McCarthy may be 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.

The dynamics that were on display during the four-day speakership battle have continued to play

out in the six months since.

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