Good morning. Welcome to Exios today. It's Friday, January 6th. I'm Nyla Boudou. Here's

what we're following today. California's stormy winter. Plus, hope Benedict is laid to rest.

But first, our democracy two years after the January 6th insurrection. That's today's

one big thing.

Representative Kevin McCarthy lost a stunning 11 rounds of voting for the House Speaker position

this week. And there's no end to the standoff in sight. And of course, all of this has been

unfolding in the lead up to today, the second anniversary of the January 6th insurrection.

Here to provide context and our Friday politics state of play is Margaret Taliv,

a senior contributor to Axios, who's also the new director of the Democracy Journalism and

Citizenship Institute at Syracuse University. Welcome Margaret and congratulations on the new job.

Thank you Nyla. It's great to be back. Also joining us is Princeton University's Julian Zellazar,

a professor of history and public affairs and editor of Myth America, which is just out this week.

Hi Julian. Nice to be with you. Margaret, you have been calling this week a living lesson

in American democracy. What do you mean by that? It's really everything you could hope to understand

about how Congress works, about the divisions within the Republican Party, and a touch back to

the World War I era, and all the way back to the Civil War to really understand the threads,

the power struggles, and the potential outcomes coming out of this week. And Kevin McCarthy has

so far lost 11 attempts for this to happen. A century ago, that guy made it on nine tries,

so Kevin McCarthy is making history as we speak. But what you're seeing here is something different

than electoral politics. It is the internal politics of the House of Representatives,

and it is about how essentially five guys can hold off the will of the majority,

and the profound impact that could have on weakening the future of the House speakership.

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