What's interesting about
the backdrop of
this is you have the former pres
Donald Trump,
making a public endorsement
of McCarthy today
saying he supports McCarthy.
And what he doesn't
support is allowing this chaos
to continue.
That doesn't
seem to change any minds, in fac
Look, Congresswoman Lauren Boebe
you know, has been down to Mar
a Lago and is kind of
a creation
of from of Trump world in many r
dissed him, essentially
saying that he has it all wrong.
That's right, Anderson.
There is an element of a fear fa
that's just not present right no
for Donald Trump with these memb
You know,
it's worth recalling,
Anderson, that this energy,
this House Freedom Caucus energy
grows out of the Tea Party,
which predates Donald Trump,
that Donald Trump seized on it
and Donald Trump
capitalized on it and fueled it
and benefited from it
and found common cause with thes
But he didn't create
this kind of energy in the house
And I think that he believes he
I think he believes
that these are all just people
who like him
and will do whatever he wants.
They're not seeing it that way r
If anything, McCarthy actually
lost one
vote after Trump
reissued his support this mornin
Now, look,
if McCarthy ends up getting a de
and becomes
the speaker, Trump will claim cr
He will say he was there all alo
If McCarthy loses support,
Trump will be quick to support
whoever looks like
he's going to be the winner,
because that's how Trump behaves
He goes, you know,
where he sees the wind blowing.
It'll be no different.
This is this says more about McC
than it does about Trump.
What's happening in the House ri
But it's not a good sign for Tru
He appears weak and he didn't ha
He jumped into this.
He also appears just isolated in
you know, in a beach resort,
a golf club in Mar a Lago.
I mean, he's not part of this at
No, he's been look,
he is part of it to the extent
that he's been making calls.
Actually, my colleagues
and I reported a couple of weeks
that he was making whip
calls on McCarthy's behalf
and he was surprised.
Lauren Boebert said that
she got a call from
he was surprised that he was fin
he wasn't actually getting anywh
with folks.
Now, I think initially
he wasn't doing that hard to sel
but he got there
and did do
a stronger a stronger
push on McCarthy's behalf.
He has been running, you know, s
a campaign that has looked
nothing like anything
we've seen him do before.
He announced his candidacy in No
right after midterms
that were a disappointment
for Republicans,
even when they won the House
it was by a very slim majority.
They are now proceeding
to make Nancy Pelosi
the person that Republicans
reviled over the course of the
last more than a decade.
They're
highlighting why she
was able to get stuff done
and why she was effective.
This is the opposite of where Re
want to be.
And Trump,
you know, makes everything about
And yet, to your point,
he's been doing nothing
he is something of a diminished
Now, again,
he's the only declared Republica
presidential candidate right now
So we can't say
he's off the stage entirely,
but he is not commanding at all.
The way we have been used to
in Republican politics
over the last six years.
Yeah, it's a Nia-Malika.
I mean, it's
fascinating
to see kind of the winds of chan
You know,
and they're not blowing
in the direction of the,
you know, the swamp of Mar-A-Lag
No, I think that's right.
Lauren Boebert,
they're getting on the floor of
and name
checking Donald Trump and essent
saying you're wrong to back
Kevin McCarthy.
You should actually be asking hi
withdraw from the race.
Was a real movement and a real m
I think, for his movement
and a sign that it is diminished
I also think, though,
that he isn't really pressing on
as much as he could.
Right? He's not threatening them.
He's not saying,
you know,
I will put somebody up against y
For instance,
a primary challenger for instanc
So he isn't going that far.
But the fact that he can't even
Lauren Boebert at this point
is, I think, a sign of his dimin
I do think we should highlight
that in some ways.
Kevin McCarthy,
I think, had a better day today
than he did yesterday.
There are some signs
that he's being able
to peel
some of these folks away,
certainly not the Never
Kevin Core,
which is five, six, seven people
which would still be enough to b
So, you know, the fact
that they were
able to get this adjournment ton
I think, a good sign for Kevin M
And we'll see what happens overn
with these discussions with Chip
He said he can bring maybe
ten folks along again
you still have seven or eight pe
or ten other people
or so that they've got it.
They've got to talk to you
to see if he can seal this deal.
And Jake, a lot of very tired
people on Capitol Hill today
eager to go home.
A lot of very, very tired people
No question.
But I do want to go to Manu
Raju, who I heard
just talked to the man of the ho
Republican leader Kevin McCarthy
And Manu,
what I'm hearing from the speake
or the Would-Be Speaker's team,
is that real progress is being m
Yeah. And that's how he feels.
He has.
He's been sounding
upbeat this whole time, even tho
he's gone down
vote after vote after vote.
He's been upbeat
but this time no different.
Actually,
the mood has certainly changed
in McCarthy's camp.
They certainly don't have the vo
He himself
acknowledges that
he does
not have a deal yet,
but he does
believe there has been movement.
He pointed to the deal
that his outside group cut with
conservative group, the Club
for Growth, to
essentially allow his super PAC
ensure that his super PAC
does not engage
in competitive
and competitive
open primary seats
that are safe Republican seats
That's a lot of words for saying
that he's moving in the directio
that conservatives want.
He said that that was a big deve
He wouldn't get into other detai
about what they may have agreed
I asked him
whether they have agreed
to the idea of what's called
no one on Capitol's
motion to vacate
would essentially eject
a sitting speaker from his posit
As if one member calls for such
They would have to get
a majority of the votes to get t
That's what conservatives
have been demanding.
McCarthy would not say
if he has come to their position
on that issue
or other issues, such as giving
committee assignments.
But he did indicate that
he is having productive discussi
He said they're going to
have more discussions from tonig
until tomorrow at noon.
He didn't
predict that he would have the v
by tomorrow at noon,
but that is going to be
a critical moment.
Also question is,
what does Byron Donalds do?
The Florida
Republican, the person
who has been nominated
to run,
the person
who had been
siphoning off
those 20 votes all day today.
Will he continue to be a candida
tomorrow?
I asked McCarthy if he has asked
to drop out of the race.
He said no,
he hasn't,
but had told me earlier
that he had planned
to talk to McCarthy today.
So that discussion will be criti
to ultimately getting a resoluti
McCarthy knows
he has virtually no
margin for error here,
but they believe at the moment
things are moving in their direc
After days of losing vote
after vote after vote,
they believe
they could potentially get there
as soon as tomorrow.
All right, Manu Raju, thank you
And so let me.
Let's just dissect.
Dana Bash, I'll start with you t
It sounds obscure,
but it's actually relatively imp
There is
supposedly an independent leader
that Kevin McCarthy has endorsed
although, of course, there's
no coordination. Right.
And this bunch of McCarthy peopl
who work there,
the Ryan budget before it for th
So this independent leadership P
goes out there and gives
money to incumbent Republicans a
what the Rebels and the Club for
which is a Koch brothers organiz
that is very MAGA right now.
What they wanted
is a pledge from this McCarthy
backed super PAC don't.
Not only should you know
you can continue
to attack
incumbent Republicans
but if there's an open seat
in a Republican district,
don't play at all. Why? Tell me.
Tell me why.
Because they feel that they are
at a disadvantage
with money
and in every other
way politically in these campaig
when they're up against a
from their point of view,
an establishment group
that has a ton of money
and has a ton of influence.
And when I use the pronoun
they I'm talking about
like in many of these cases, lik
Republican candidates,
like minded to the boebert of th
the MAGA caucus. Right.
But it's like MAGA plus plus
the ultra super PAC.
I don't even know.
I mean, we have to come up with a new na
for maybe by the end of this, we
maga MAGA, if you call them.
Well, I like it.
Yeah. All right.
You have to give Joe
Biden's moniker that way.
So he did ultra maga o ultra.
Right. But so and so that's that
That's one of the one of the rea
why the mega maga in Congress,
they don't
they don't want McCarthy going i
and picking a more established b
because if you kind of take a st
and look at the makeup of the Ho
the Democrats and the Republican
they have very gerrymandered,
gerrymandered, very solidly
blue solidly red districts
for the most part.
And in these red districts,
whoever wins the primary wins th
And so that's why who plays in
these primaries
is the ballgame for these
Republicans and.