Welcome to the beat. I'm Ari Melville. This Republican chaos is continuing on this Friday night in the house.

Which just rejected Kevin McCarthy for Speaker again the 13th time.

That's two more defeats from McCarthy today.

Kevin McCarthy is pretty much stuck at this point. He can't even stop these votes from taking place and losing over and over again.

House Republicans now are on the verge of becoming a total clown show. They're not careful.

What's it going to take to get over the top here?

We'll get it done tonight. It looks like you will lose on this 13th ballot. I've got a couple members flying back.

That's what it's been looking like as the weekend now looms on this Friday evening on the East Coast.

It's clear this is one of the worst weeks for any party leader in American history in the last century.

And that includes past speakers who were famously ousted by their own members, like Bainer or Gingrich,

but who had at least a master coalition first. The New York Times reports how McCarthy contorted himself as his battle to become Speaker,

lived towards the fourth day a humiliating stretch of consecutive defeats in an election that's now the most protracted contest since 1859 with McCarthy offering concessions that could substantially weaken his own authority.

And the reporting shows those concessions include weakening the Speaker's office by empowering a single member to force a vote to liquidate his rule, a whole thing,

and put even more of these rebels in powerful positions, which to many Republicans would look like rewarding the disloyal behavior.

Now, the bruising contest shows McCarthy is still short of the votes he needs, but today he did bring 14 Republicans back over to supporting his Speaker bit.

The House returns for a Friday night session at 10 p.m. and night currently in this adjournment.

McCarthy claims momentum. He claims that he will still find a way to woo some more members, but the math only offers basically two paths.

Get fewer people voting, which changes the threshold for a majority, or somehow some way after all of these losses, change minds and flip two of the original rebel opponents who state their whole identity this week on opposing him.

People like Gates, and Bober, and Biggs. It's clearly dawned on members over the course of this week and especially ending the week that they are finishing this first Republican week in office,

but the very clown show that Sean had they warned about and the recriminations abound.

If we don't hold this line, the entire union is at stake.

They wanted to win the majority to fight inflation. The only thing they're fighting is each other.

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