Mike Lawler had quite a day.

The absurdity of the whole thing is clear.

It's 6.30 pm on Thursday, two and a half weeks into October's

headless House of Representatives. We're sitting in the New York

Congressman's office in Longworth, and he's waiting to find out when he'll

have his third chance to vote against Jim Jordan for speaker.

I couldn't help notice that Lawler keeps a copy of an annotated script of the

Godfather next to his desk, which seemed a little too

on the nose as we discussed the GOP's warring families.

Lawler spent much of the day in a conference-wide meeting of Republicans,

who for three plus hours screamed at each other, cursed at each other,

and blamed each other for their current crisis.

Shortly before we sat down tonight, Lawler left a meeting with Jim Jordan,

and most of the other Republicans who have voted against Jordan for speaker.

It was Jordan's latest attempt to convert the holdouts.

Jordan's pitch didn't work, at least not on Lawler.

Nothing that happened in the GOP conference meeting, or in Lawler's private

meeting with Jordan, or in the thousands of calls to his office from angry,

threatening constituents trying to sway his vote,

have done anything to change his mind. As our conversation in his office began,

he was waiting to find out whether a third vote would happen tonight.

We got the answer when a bell rang in the middle of our interview,

...