well nancy pelosi has done it the house
speaker has been elected to yet another
term number four
for miss pelosi from san francisco she
has clinched the number of votes that
she needs in her caucus to be elected
the house speaker once again miss pelosi
needed 214 votes and she has now
gotten over that we are told uh two
democrats at least so far
according to our accounting voted for
two other democrats and not for her one
of those was conor lamb that
young congressman from western
pennsylvania right outside of
pittsburgh he did not vote for ms pelosi
the last time
so she has a very few handful numbers of
democratic opponents in her caucus there
are some wondering now with
her election as well as with vice
president joe biden
becoming the president-elect and set to
assume the oval office
on january 20th whether or not the
democratic caucus will be moved much
more to the left
and a progressive area in terms of the
pressures
that miss pelosi and the rest of her
party will feel that is
yet to be seen and yet to come nancy
pelosi quite a
american story she uh grew up in
baltimore her father was a maryland
congressman who went on to become
mayor of baltimore so some have seen her
ability to bring bare-knuckled political
strategy
and stances and politics that she'd
learned at her father's knee
in the city hall of baltimore to the way
she had runs the speakership
uh with a tight fist and a sharp whip
as she has wielded power unlike uh
perhaps a few other speakers in recent
memory except for
sam rayburn who of course is legendary
in being a house speaker again the
democrats
have reelected nancy pelosi as
house speaker uh chad program is uh
standing by in the capitol to uh give us
the very latest
on this reelection chad how did it go
are you there
i'm there well the vote by uh the house
of representatives
you know favored nancy pelosi we knew it
was going to be a narrow majority for
her and this is going to be the story of
the 117th congress
as nancy pelosi on vote after vote after
vote is really going to have to thread
the needle in order to get the votes to
move things across the finish line the
unofficial total
that we have here is 216 votes
total for nancy pelosi 208 for kevin
mccarthy the house minority leader and
as you say there were five
defections at the end of the day there
were 429 members
who cast ballots when they took that
initial taking attendance vote here they
were at 427.
uh mark desange a democratic congressman
from california was not part of that
he's had some health issues
he did show up and did vote for nancy
pelosi i hear the defections there were
three
members who voted present all moderate
starting their second term
mikey cheryl from new jersey abigail
spanberger
from southern virginia and also alyssa
slotkin who voted present
two years ago she voted president today
they all three voted present
today the two defections as you say who
voted for somebody else by name
jared golden a moderate democrat from
maine
he voted uh you know against nancy
pelosi two years ago he voted today for
tammy duckworth the democratic senator
from illinois and you also had conor
lamb who voted for hakeem jeffries the
chair of the democratic caucus
you know nancy pelosi going into this
vote when we saw that 427
figure we calculated that she could only
lose about six votes now that number
went up a little bit because of
of what happened here but she threaded
the needle today she always seems to
know exactly where the votes were and
that's why she's returning to the
speaker suite
today yeah what what is the thinking
uh uh chad behind some of those people
uh the handful who voted against her i
mean you're bucking your party
you're bucking the power of the bee uh
in maine that's
has been a swing district for example
and conor lamb uh you know snatched
part of a district from a republican at
one point you know
what's behind the thinking uh titling at
windmills or what
well nancy pelosi understands that some
of these districts are not in her favor
you know republicans like to use her
as kind of the symbol of the democratic
party a san francisco liberal
they run against her with this narrow
majority they view this as an
opportunity
to pick the house up in 2022 that
campaign frankly has already started
and they're going to look at these
democrats from other swing districts
who cast ballots for her and not the
slotkins and the span burgers
but others and say look you know they're
associating with nancy pelosi and
weaponize this roll call vote against
them
all right chad a terrific work as always
you explain it like nobody else does and
we'll get back to you
as soon as we get another development
chat program on capitol hill