Good morning, everyone. I'm Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza. It's Friday, September 22nd. And once again, what's driving the day is Kevin McCarthy's struggle to pass, well, anything through the house.

Joining me to talk about the situation on the hill is Congress reporter and primary author of our huddle newsletter

Daniela Diaz. Good morning, Daniela. Good morning, Ryan. Let's start with recapping where

Kevin McCarthy stands at the end of this week and what we've learned. I would say, and I'm going to

choose my words carefully, Ryan, because it has been quite a week.

The ball hasn't moved that much forward when it comes to funding the government on the House side.

Republicans are still where they started earlier this week.

And when I say Republicans, I really mean House Republican leadership.

When it comes to figuring out a plan that would

pass the House along party lines because, of course, the minority party always votes no on these

issues. That's always how it's been in the past. And that would be, of course, the Democrats, to try to get

enough votes to fund the government. And right now, there are still so many members, especially a lot of

those in the House Freedom

Caucus that would not support any sort of bill to fund the government. And the real problem is

that they don't want to support a bill that would fund the government at its current levels.

And as McCarthy has, as we've watched twice now this week, try to offer concessions to them

to get them on board. Nothing's changed their minds.

So we've seen that not only with proposals that have been floated to these members to get

them on board to fund the government that would cut funding for a temporary amount of time,

but we've also seen it with two failed rule votes for a defense approves bill that, of course, the rule of vote isn't even the

actual vote. It's just the vote to advance the debate. So it's pretty crazy that basically

he's at square one and nothing's changed. In the old days, voting against the rule was like a

...