Hello and welcome to the Punch Bowl News Readback podcast.

I'm your host, Max Cohen, and I'm joined this week by congressional reporter and House expert

Mika Solner to talk about the very dramatic one-vote win for Speaker Mike Johnson on the very first ballot.

Mika, thanks for joining me.

First question for you.

Take me through where you were during the very long first ballot and how it went down from

your perspective.

Yeah, well, thanks for that very kind introduction.

But I was in the house chamber in the upstairs

before we saw basically some minimal drama.

And then Mike Johnson securing the speakership

very successfully in one ballot.

So got to kind of have an eagle's eye view.

I think that's what you're saying.

Yeah, birds' eye view, eagle's eye view.

So, okay, so for those who are listening to Home,

walk them through what that means being in the House Gallery

and why that's a pretty privileged position

because not every reporter and not every member of the public can be

there. So tell us like the behind the scenes of getting that seat. Yeah. So basically you kind of

have to reserve a spot or like tell the gallery staff that you want to be in. But it's really

great because reporters, it's always accessible to reporters. But on days like this, you really get

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