Jan. 3, 2023: The House GOP’s epic game of chicken

The Playbook Podcast

POLITICO

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3.9 • 699 Ratings

🗓️ 3 January 2023

⏱️ 12 minutes

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Summary

Welcome to the 118th Congress, the new Republican House majority, and one of the most unpredictable and potentially chaotic scenarios we’ve seen on Capitol Hill. The House will gavel in at noon, and following a prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance and a quorum call, the clerk will immediately start the live roll call to elect the next speaker. GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, however, still hasn’t clinched the votes he needs, and the day could drag late into the night, we’re told, as Republicans grapple with choosing their leader. Be prepared for surprises and a lot of drama. Even veteran lawmakers who emerged from meetings with McCarthy on Monday evening weren’t entirely sure how this will all shake out. We’re told that McCarthy’s plan, however, is to continue voting — over and over again — in a bid to wear down his detractors until he gets the gavel. Playbook editor Mike DeBonis and co-author Rachael Bade discuss the long day ahead for Kevin McCarthy. Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter Raghu Manavalan is the host and senior editor of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.Jenny Ament is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, it's Playbook editor, Mike Debonis. To kick off the week, I'm joined by
0:05.1	playbook author Rachel Bade for today's Playbook Daily Briefing.
0:12.0	It's the first daily briefing of the year. It's also the first day of the 118th Congress,
0:17.4	and it promises to be one of the most chaotic and unpredictable days in modern
0:22.0	congressional history.
0:23.6	Today, the House is set to elect a new speaker, but it's not at all certain that that
0:29.2	will happen, is it, Rachel?
0:32.0	Not at all.
0:33.0	It's going to be a really long day, Mike.
0:35.0	Happy New Year.
0:37.1	Okay, so where to even start on this? Well,
0:39.5	in a perfect world where things go as planned and members of political parties, you know,
0:46.6	sort of obey the rules of the game. What would happen today? Typically, you would see Democrats vote for their leader for speaker, so that would be calling out the name, Hakeem Jeffries, to be the next speaker.
1:00.6	And you would see Republicans all fall in line behind the person they had nominated a few weeks ago, which is Kevin McCarthy.
1:09.3	The problem here is that McCarthy hasn't landed the votes,
1:13.0	and as of right now, he does not have them.
1:15.9	He's got at least five hard nose against him,
1:18.5	and according to people I have spoken to who are polling for him
1:22.5	and sort of familiar with the whip count at this point,
1:25.9	there's another seven or eight soft nose against him right now.
1:30.0	He can only lose four, but he's looking right now at about a dozen people who are going to vote for someone else.
1:36.8	And so we're expecting and his allies at this point are expecting that we could see multiple rounds of speakership votes today that go all
	...

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