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Hi, this is Josh Marshall, and this is the Josh Marshall podcast.

We are on our second episode of 2023.

Since we spoke to you last, we finally have a speaker of the house, Kevin McCarthy.

And I think it's worth stepping back and saying that at least in my mind,

this was an evolving story where conventional wisdom and non-conventional wisdom

really didn't have a clear sense of what was going to happen.

It was not a four-day conclusion that Kevin McCarthy was going to be the speaker.

I would say that there was a significant period of time when people were assuming that

it was a losing battle for him.

At least in my mind, there was, I don't know what is, I guess this thing went on for four days.

It was a total of four days, four days into the next morning of a fifth day.

And at least in my sense of how this evolved, there was the first two or three days.

There was a lot of thinking of, you know, those 20 are not moving, period.

And at some point McCarthy's backers are going to say, you know, love you, Kevin,

but it's not happening.

We need another plan.

And when is that going to, when is that loosening of support going to happen?

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