Welcome, it is the verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

It is a moment that finally happened.

Many of you were asleep, but we have a new Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, and here's what it sounded like.

Do you solemnly swear that you will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,

that you will bear true faith and allegiance to the same,

that you take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion,

and that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which

you're about to enter. So happy God. Yes, I do. Congratulations and God's faith.

That was it. Happened late and I would say technically early in the morning. Senator,

your prediction on this podcast was

spot on. You said you thought they would get a deal done Friday night. It happened Friday night

into Saturday morning. Pretty spot on. Congratulations for that prediction. Well, I will say when we

talked about this on Wednesday morning's pod, what what you and I predicted together, I will say when we talked about this on Wednesday morning's pod, what you and I predicted together,

I said that I thought the most likely outcome was that Kevin McCarthy would cut a deal with the holdouts,

and in particular that he would cut a deal with Chip Roy, that Chip Roy really was the leader of the 20,

and the reason I thought that is because Chip was focused, I think quite rightly, on changes to the rules, changes to how the House conducts business, on substance.

Some of the people involved in this leadership battle, I think had real personal animosity to Kevin McCarthy. I think

Chip, to his credit, was not motivated by that. He was motivated by changing the broken way

that Washington operates. And what you and I talked about Wednesday morning on this podcast

is I thought the most likely outcome was Kevin and Chip would reach a deal.

He would make some significant concessions.

And those concessions would be enough and McCarthy would be elected.

...