Jan. 4, 2023: How long can McCarthy hang on?

The Playbook Podcast

POLITICO

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3.9 • 699 Ratings

🗓️ 4 January 2023

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

So how does this end? And how long will it take to end it? Those are the questions towering over the new House Republican majority, which for the first time in 100 years, found itself unable to choose a speaker on the first ballot — or two others afterward. The House is now paralyzed, unable to swear in its members or form committees or adopt rules — let alone pass legislation. And the scary realization for the GOP rank-and-file is that there’s no easy way out of this mess and no sign that one is going to appear anytime soon. Playbook editor Mike DeBonis and co-author Rachael Bade break it all down, plus West Wing Playbook co-author and White House correspondent Eli Stokols stops by to discuss the view from the Biden administration. 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, good morning, Playbookers.
0:02.6	I'm Raguinalvalin.
0:03.7	It's Wednesday.
0:04.7	Today's show, what else could it be?
0:06.6	Congressman Kevin McCarthy earned...
0:08.2	The Republican front of...
0:10.9	Congressman Kevin McCarthy...
0:12.0	...has already had...
0:13.3	...three votes in a row today.
0:15.4	It's her Politico Playbook Daily Briefing.
0:21.5	The question I had, the question that most people had when it comes to the House Speaker
0:25.8	Saga, how long can this go on?
0:28.4	Playbook editor Mike DeBonis and co-author Rachel Bade are here to break it all down.
0:33.6	So looking back on yesterday, to the extent the plan was to go to the floor and fight, it didn't really go well, right? I mean, he ended up with fewer votes at the end of the day than he had at the beginning of the day. What reason is there to think that Kevin McCarthy could pick up any support in the next few hours before the house comes back in at noon today?
0:55.7	Well, I think, you know, if Republicans are sort of being honest with themselves and some
1:00.1	are obviously more candid privately than they're willing to say publicly, I think it's
1:04.9	difficult to see a path for McCarthy to get the gavel at this point. We talked in Monday's
1:10.2	playbook about how his detractors have privately indicated to us that
1:14.6	even if he were to give them, every rules change they're demanding, they still don't
1:20.8	want to vote for him because they don't trust him.
1:23.1	And so he's sort of run out of options there when it comes to horse trading to get these votes.
1:28.1	The other thing we've seen over the past 24 hours is Donald Trump has kind of gone silent on him.
	...

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