[bell] >> i rise today to nominate the gentleman from california, kevin mccarthy to the house. >> the position of speaker of the house of representatives, hakeem jeffries. >> and place the name of my friend from arizona, andy biggs for speaker of the house.

>> i rise to nominate kevin mccarthy as speaker of the house. >> i rise for election into the speaker of the house of representatives, the esteemed and leader of house democrats, mr. hakeem jeffries. >> the honorable kevin mccarthy from the state of california votes cast is duly elected speaker of the house of representatives. [cheers and applause] . neil: it's over. our long national nightmare is over. all right, which wasn't a national nightmare, i mean, it wasn't that long in the scheme of things, a few days, it just seemed like a few centuries, but it is over. kevin mccarthy at 1:39 a.m. formally getting the gavel to become speaker of the house, but it's what's left after all of that that has a lot of people wondering.

alexandria hoff followed this from the beginning with how it ended. >> what a great compilation it was. it showed how much back and forth has happened in four days. there were moments last night where i felt like i was watching the u.k. house of commons rather than the u.s. house. that's how lively and intense things were through the very end. at one point it looked like there was not going to be a 15th vote, but minds changed and well after midnight congressman mccarthy was handed the gavel. >> usa. usa! >> from the great state of california and the next speaker of the 118th congress, kevin mccarthy. [cheers] >> that was easy, huh? [laughter] >> i never thought we'd get up here. >> well, speaker mccarthy squeezed by with 216 votes, since republicans, including lauren bobert and matt gaetz

voted present. and 212 democrats backed congressman hakeem jeffries. six republicans voted present, that was strategic, how contentious things became after the 14th vote failure, congressman elect at the time mike rogers of alabama had to be physically restrained after appearing to lunge at gaetz. still, victory for mccarthy took just one more round. >> not all of you, some of you are new, but i hope one thing is clear after this week, i never give up. >> well, mccarthy immediately swore in the 118th congress delayed by the stalemate that started tuesday and led largely by the freedom caucus and that break down yesterday as mccarthy agreed on key concessions and include the ability to oust him more easily

if members desire to do so and an array of spending cuts and it's the beginning of the discussion on those, neil. neil: thank you very much for that, alexandria, it was like watching a prize fight, back and forth, back and forth. in the old days, the prize fight was 15 rounds. thank you for that. there was a seminal moment last night when those six final, never-kevin-- they didn't vote for kevin, didn't vote at all. present, enough to put them over the top, but a seminal moment, really, came when this next gentleman ahead of the so-called freedom caucus did something that changed the ball game. take a look. >> perry. >> mccarthy. [cheers and applause] . neil: that was on the 12th round of voting. you heard perry, as in scott perry, the pennsylvania republican congressman, by the way, the house freedom caucus

chair, a group of largely conservative congressmen and women that were very, very influential, extracting this agreement. he's kind enough to join us now, and retired brigadier general, 39 years in the military. congressman, good to have you and thank you for your service. >> well, neil, it's great to be with you. i know these are described as concessions, but they're not concessions, they're wins for the american people and quite honestly, they're wins for the institution. a lot of members don't like the pro process. i get that. i tell you a lot of members have come up and thanked me now that it's done and say, man, you've got great stuff that's going to improve this place. look, neil, everybody loves sausage, but not many people like to watch it being made and i think that's the analogy here. we're, look, we're doing fine, but right now, i think we have much shall much improved things, but things had to change. let's face it, can't keep doing the same things with the same conditions and expect a different outcome and we had to

change that trajectory. neil: still not all of your colleagues are happy with the results of that. it's one thing for chuck schumer tying spending to debt is going to lead to another government shutdown and rue the day that the concessions were made, but even some of your moderate congressmen are looking at one could torpedo the much speaker. you got what you wanted, but that you'll regret. >> and thomas jefferson wrote that rule around a couple hundred years and everybody worked under it with big majorities, slim majorities, civil wars, world wars, all of that stuff. nancy pelosi is the one that changed it and we needed to reserve that back into the rules package so that not only members could hold the most powerful person in the building accountable, but quite honestly, so the american people have the accountability

and that's what it's really there for. neil: were you surprised, congressman, that the six holdouts never budged. at the end they voted present and almost came to blows certainly, and florida congressman gaetz. but i'm wondering what that might portend going into this congress? >> look, i'm not surprised. they are change agents. they are patriots and they are our friends and while many of us got to a place based on the framework of the agreement, that we could support kevin mccarthy, they did not and maybe there's some issue that still remains outstanding that would bring them across the finish line and those obviously weren't addressed and that's okay. look, we've got to find a way to govern in a slim majority and all voices have to be heard, neil. and some of those that deserve

the recognition as every other voice have to be ignored and what we've shown last night. yes, we can get there, but we're not going to ignore each individual voice, because each voice represents millions of americans and their voice counts, too. neil: and a lot of your colleagues say you're a small group the conservative college and a disproportionate number of goodies and they're concerned given the fact that the freedom caucus will have more on the rules committee, that establishings legislative authority while pushing legislation, anything that of the addresses spending and trying to put it up for a vote whether we need spending, all issues might be wise and good, but that it will slow congress down to the point that nothing gets done. what do you say? >> we're not interested in nothing getting done. what we're interested in is not

doing what we've been doing for the last 10, 15 years and you just saw it 15 days ago, neil. 4,000 pages dropped at 2:00 in the morning, 1.7 trillion. 7200 ear marks like a christmas tree without the christmas presents and you're forced to vote for it before christmas or shut the government down and that's the-- >> would you ever shut the government down yourself, congressman, and count that as an act. whatever mayor for -- meritorious, or whatever, if it brought it to the brink you would. >> i would never say never for anythi anything. there's a process and a reason. if we're just going to keep spending money that we don't have, i don't know where it's going to end, it doesn't seem to me as a person that balances my own budget, that it seems sustainable. people sent us to congress to make hard choices. the hard choices are before us,

let's make the hard choices. >> you're open and not taking that out of your arrow quiver, so to speak, that a shutdown is an option? >> well, there's a reason that it was set up this way, neil. there are leverage points on both sides. again, it's objectionable, but if you do the hard work upfront, which is actually what this is all designed to do. do the hard work upfront, you won't face that prospect at the end. neil: all right. we'll watch very, very closely. congressman, no longer congressman-elect, scott perry, thank you very, very much. freedom caucus chair as well. dan crenshaw is joining us, the texas congressman had pretty choice words for some of that group, not all of them, but some of them who were pushing this to the brink. he's joining us now, congressman welcome. >> thanks for having me, neil. neil: let me ask you about some things you said. ted cruz, for example, bashed you for some of the rhetoric you were using, told you to

settle down, you know, that calling a lot of these folks enemies early on and you also had other choice words didn't help anybody. what do you say? >> to ted cruz? i mean, he's called american citizens terrorists multiple times so i don't know if he really wants to play that game. look, i do not think that these people are terrorists and to the extense that my colleagues took offense to that, of course i didn't mean it that way, we were speaking in terms of a very difficult negotiation where sometimes you use a turn of phrase about not giving into terrorists. i don't disagree with anything scott perry just said. scott perry is one of these people working in good faith and that chip roy was one of those people working in good faith. the on thing i disagree with them on is how long it could have taken to get to this point. this rules package that we've agreed on, these processes that we've agreed on, these are very agreeable things.

they will make it more difficult, but that's what we want. again, i don't really disagree with scott on anything he just said. but what frustrates a lot of us it didn't have to come to this point. there's not a whole lot of differences between what we have now and what we've had before. they are good things. don't disagree with them on any of that and i appreciate some of the ideas that came up in this process. a lot of us do. there's broad agreement there and so, we really are more unified as a result of this. again, i agree with him on that, too. it looks contentious and it was contentious, but frustrations that you saw-- >> when you say you're okay with everything. i don't mean to mischaracterize what you're saying, congressman, but there was a lot there that a lot of people thought went too far, that there were concessions made on top of concessions, including, you know, some measures that, i think, you had even said would kind of limit or stymie congress and certainly the speaker. are you now saying that you

don't think that that's the case that these concessions are okay? >> i think that the agreement that we have now on the motion to vacate, specifically is what you're talking about. neil: right, right. >> this idea that one person can call a motion to vacate and we all have to vote again on who the speaker is. okay, as scott said, that's actually been the rule for a very long time. pelosi changed it. she changed it to a threshold of 100. a week ago mccarthy agreed to five and then got down to one. i don't see much difference between five and one to be perfectly honest with you. no, this does not give me heartburn. just doesn't we're good with you. neil: and seems to me, congressman-- i'm jumping on you again. and the concessions we spoke about when last we spoke, you're okay with, and didn't go too far. >> you'd have to be specific about what i was very concerned about. last time we spoke, i was angry about how this was unfolding because i would go up to a lot

of members and ask them what else they needed and i couldn't get answers and that's the frustration of a lot of the 200 members who kept supporting mccarthy. and so, in my opinion, this all could have been done earlier because i'm looking at the agreement we have now, and it seems like something very, very, very similar to what we had agreed upon before we started all of this. and that's my only frustration. and that, you know, as far as concessions, i don't want to call them concessions because i agree with scott perry on how congress should work. there's so much more agreement in the republican conference than i think is being characterized by all of this drama. and i think that has to be said, we want it to work in a difficult way, and we want a more open process. we want chairmen and we want members to have a say in what comes to the floor. that's all that's coming. neil: there are going to be more people having a say in who those people are that are going to have the say. the freedom caucus will have

more members and more committees. >> yeah, good. neil: and the rules to set the agenda and you're okay with that. >> good, absolutely. and one of the problems, this came up a lot this week, we've got a lot out this week, and with the good faith actors, and one of the reasons you want those members across all committees is so they see some of this legislation before it gets to the floor and they want to blow it up. you've got to include everybody and a lot of these ideas and a lot of these negotiations ahead of time, so they don't seem surprised later. at least make sure that that excuse is taken off the table. but to be clear, none of this was ever disagreeable to the conference and that's frustrating. neil: they wanted guarantees. they didn't trust-- this is what i heard from many of them, that kevin mccarthy would keep his word and now,

that's responsible for what is going for kevin mccarthy from not going. among the things they got cap spending for the next fiscal year at last year's levels. now, some have said that would be akin to cutting the budget and that some of your moderate members aren't keen on that and they think it would be dead on arrival with democrats, certainly. so they're set up or afraid that this agreement has set up a real disaster. what do you say? >> i wouldn't call it a disaster, again, i'm a bit more of a budget hawk on that. neil: right. >> so this does not give me heartburn. neil: so you're okay at freezing levels at this year's levels for next year. >> yeah, yeah, let me tell you what some people have concerns about. a lot of people want to cut broad spending and we've seen under joe biden how much drastic increases there's been in all levels of government, whether it's the epa really

need tens of billions of more dollars? we don't think so, but we think that the defense department needs to be on a consistent trajectory in order to compete with china, invest in the weaponry and technology that we need. so that's where the concern is, and we're going to hash that out in the appropriations process. so these are broad agreements on how we should think about the budget and broad agreements on how, that we generally agree on and there's going to be fights in the appropriations process about where that money comes from and how we pay for what, what we have to cut, et cetera, but that happens in the appropriations process. neil: and they're saying it's frozen at this year's level and you're saying the total number can be frozen, but it better not included military? >> well, that's of course what i'm going to be fighting for. neil: right, right. but we're all going to be fighting for different things. this is politics, this is how the sausage gets made and people are going to debate that in an open way.

the goal of this -- the goal of the last few weeks has been to get us to a point where we agree how we're going to fight about that. it is the point of congress, right? the point of congress is not to just work so smoothly and get it done quickly. the point of congress is to get it done right and that can be very messy because you have 435 people from different parts of the country with different preferences and it would be weird if everyone agreed on that. and there will be more late nights and debates and that's what the american people deserve. my only heartburn, this could have been done a week ago. >> i just wonder what your thoughts are right now that chuck schumer, now of course he's not exactly in your camp, he's saying that kevin mccarthy's concessions to the extremists as he calls them, in his party, make it far more likely that the maga controlled house will cause a government

shutdown or default with devastating consequences to the country. what did you think of that? >> when i start caring about what chuck schumer says, pigs will be flying, but i would say, look, on the government shutdown aspect and you asked mr. perry this just a minute ago, of course, nothing is off the table, but we've also had some very good ideas how to free prevent that. and we could have a cr going through the appropriations process the way we'll go through the appropriations process. this is another big issue that american people have. why is everything just lumped into the omnibus bill at the last minute and the senate doesn't go through regular order. we plan on going through regular order, it's hard, a ton of time, way more time than people are used to and we want to somehow force the senate to do the same. what leverage do we have to make them go through the same things? i mean, look at the ndaa, i had

good amendments in there that would save veterans lives. all right, putting them through cutting edge treatments, using psychedelics, and yeah, you didn't think i'd say that, but this is saving people's lives right now and they have to go overseas to get it. the va is experimenting with this and amazing results. my amendment that had broad agreement in the house didn't get looked at in the senate. this is broken and it does affect people's lives. so, this process has to be hard and messy and people have to stay light to get it done and the republican conference has never been in disagreement with that. this week, i don't like how it was done. it was unnecessary. it was very unnecessary, but we got it done. neil: and you made that clear at the time. cooler and calmer things mope hopefully go forward from here

and thank you for your service to this country. dan crenshaw. >> thank you. neil: and the president is going to the border and the national council and what do you want to see out of the president? >> first off, we're going-- we can't say excited, but coming down to see what he should have been seeing a couple of years ago and hopefully he takes a good hard look at it, consults with the right people and finally gets a fix to this thing. neil: he has talked about, you know, especially these four countries, like venezuela, cuba, who are claiming asylum, that maybe they get-- a special path for them, taking 30,000 or so each month, and reviewing their cases adjudicating their cases. i don't know if it's the same as footing to the front of the line, but your thoughts? >> yeah, i think that putting anybody the front of the line and putting a hard number out there is just going to cause

concern for more people to come over the wrong way. i think what they need to do is a mandatory detention, mandatory removal and speed up the process as far as the asylum officers go, but stop giving people front of the line privileges because more countries will come in. it's not just three countries we're dealing with. we're dealing with 40, 50, 60 different countries daily. neil: do you get a sense that this visit will accomplish anything though? a lot of your colleagues are saying that things will be spruced up at el paso and it won't look nearly as bad as it is. i don't know what the real case will be. but the president is, to your point, coming and relieved to see that, but what are you specifically -- given some of the plans the administration has and asylum issue and providing more funding for you and your men and women at the border, will that be a start of something or just a quick political trip? >> you know, if the past is any indication, it seems like it's

just a political trip and you're right, they'll do the dog and pony show, this'll clean, shine everything up and make everything look beautiful and once they leave or go around the wrong corner, it's right back to normal. hopefully, you know, as far as we're concerned, we don't care if the republicans fix it, the democrats fix it, both of them jump together and fix it. just fix it already. neil: when you hear the homeland security secretary mayorkas describe that the border is not open, what do you say? >> i think right now, i don't think anybody takes what secretary mayorkas says seriously. he's kind of akin to baghdad bob. he's telling you everything is fine and behind him everything's crumbling. he's absolutely incorrect when he says that the border is secure. it's anything, but secure. neil: the president apparently, since he reports to the president, concurs.

>> yeah, and i think that's our problem right there. and hopefully the president will come down and see with his own eyes. i'm not sure what he's going to do. i'm not too hopeful, but let's wait and see and maybe something goodwill come out of it. i don't think so, but let's wait and see and hope for the best. >> are you going to be there, chris, when the president arrives? >> you know, i don't think so. they haven't told me anything about it. it's a good 10, 12-hour ride for me. i'll go if happened, but better off staying home. >> thank you. news in this country are getting a whole lot of attention nothing to do with the border or fights on capitol hill, but everything to do with covid cases that are spiking, particularly, by a subvariant right now that's getting a whole lot of attention. it's way over my head and i didn't understand it, but as soon as i heard covid cases spiking, i thought of getting

dr. redfield with us. doctor, this variant, it's getting a great deal of attention because an increasing number of covid cases reported and hospitalsizations reported are tied to it. can you tell us about it? >> well, neil, this is what we're going to continue to see. the virus is going to evolve to more and more and more infectious variants that can escape the immunity from natural infection or vaccines and currently that's what we have with the about b1-5. we didn't see any significant variant in the united states and today it's probably somewhere between 40 and 50% of all new infections, whereas last week it was 20%. so this variant is spreading very fast, extremely infectious. it really does escape previous

immunity and that's what you're seeing. china is going to experience, i think, you know, conservatively, i think they'll probable have a billion infections between december and, say march, so they're having an enormous epidemic and the more the virus circulates among that many people the more it's going to have an opportunity to form new, new and new variants. so we should anticipate, although access the 1.5 is the variant that we're dealing with right now. before that it was bx1.1 and before that omicron 5. neil: so many. >> continues and one thing-- >> and so little time and so many numbers. but i want your sense of the existing vaccines out there and boosters that are out there, is that enough to deal with this or not? >> you know, neil, the challenge with the current vaccines although very important, encourage people to keep their vaccinations up-to-date. they're nondurable.

when we started we had maybe eight to 12 months protection with the wuhan strain and then fell to five, six months for delta. and fell to about four months for omicron and three months for omicron 5. so the current vaccines provide protection, but they do provide protection for only about 12 to 16 weeks and then you're vulnerable again. neil: we were talking and discussing this new congress and leadership taken over right now and speaker mccarthy. and one of the agreements i'm told we're trying to iron this out. apologize if it's not quite iron clad is the agreement on the part of members to get away with vaccine mandates that republicans, if they had their way and can vote on this, in the weeks and months ahead, they would not require mandates and they would urge against those who do. i think i'm cutting to the gist of it. what do you think of that? >> neil, i'm 100% in that camp,

i don't believe na mandates help with vaccine hesitancy. i think that mandates reinforce vaccine hesitancy. we should make the arguments to them on getting vaccinated and i say those over 50, conditions, hypertension, diabetes, obesity. and encouraging folks to get vaccinated. i don't think that mandates help at all. in anything, they reinforce vaccine hesitancy. >> thank you very much. i know i was hitting you with late breaking developments. i appreciate that. happy new year and-- >> thank you. neil: and developments are coming up with the latest after

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>> all right, we're getting even more details, scary ones at that in those idaho murders. let's get the latest for jonathan hunt in moscow, idaho. >> good morning, neil. some interesting developments at the house where those four students were murdered. our cameras caught investigators bringing out more evidence from the home just yesterday afternoon and among the items that they removed were mattresses. one of those mattresses appeared through the plastic covering that they had put over it, to us to have dark stains on it. now, obviously, we don't know what those stains were, but given what happened in the bedrooms of that home, people can draw their own conclusions, a disturbing sightseeing them bring out the mattresses on

which those victims were apparently sleeping. there is, obviously, a delay now before we get the next court hearings for bryan kohberger. he's due back in court at the county courthouse behind me next thursday, that will just be a status hearing. in the meantime, investigators continue to build their case, which they say is very strong. they believe they have their man in bryan kohberger. the vehicle surveillance footage that they have, the cell phone records that place him outside or in the vicinity of the victims' home some 12 times leading up to this indicates that investigators he may have been stalking those victims and obviously, the investigators, as well, neil have a lot more evidence that

they are not at this point sharing with us. the affidavit we got this week was simply the probable cause affidavit enough to get the arrest in pennsylvania where kohberger's family live, enough to have kohberger extradited back here. they do not have to give us anymore until they go to trial, in effect, and the way that they seem to be operating here in idaho, they seem to like to work quietly and they don't feel the need to share information publicly. there's now a gag order in place and we might not find out a lot more, but when we get to trial, it's really going to be interesting as they layout the exact time frame of what they believe bryan kohberger did and perhaps most importantly, neil, what we have not heard anything about yet is a motive in this and that's something that the families of the victims would really like to know, neil. neil: you know, jonathan, all of your great reporting on this. i'm curious, kohberger

returning to the scene of the crime. i raised this, and it's a feature we see in a lot of the tragedies. do we know the purpose of that return? >> we do not know the purpose of it, neil. it's interesting. his phone, remember, did not pinning at the site of the murders at the time they were happening and investigators believe he may have deliberately turned his phone off, but it did then ping again as you say 9 a.m. the next morning, around five hours after the murders happened. so, why was he there? was he perhaps trying to get back the knife sheath that was dropped in alongside one of the victims? that is where you'll remember where they got the dna match. perhaps he thought he could get into the house and retrieve that if he'd realized he had dropped it there or perhaps he was, as a lot of criminal analyst will tell you, just curious to return to the crime of the scene and see what was

happening and what's curious about that, neil, that 9 a.m., 911 had not even been called. remember, those murders happened at 4 a.m. one of the surviving roommates saw the person who police say was the killer, but yet, a call did not go to 911 until 11:58 the next day. so the murders happened five hours later the alleged murderer returns to the scene, another three hours after that, finally, there's a call to 911, neil. neil: yeah, that's a huge big question mark. we'll see what happens. jonathan hunt in moscow, idaho. thank you, jonathan, very, very much. you've probably heard the parents of slain idaho student kaylee goncalves want the death penalty. and thank you for joining us. how is the family digesting all of this news, all of these developments? >> well, i think they were relieved initially to, you

know, find a suspect and now that there's a name and a face to all of this stuff, then it starts to, you know, the criminal justice process starts so now it's a long road ahead and they're trying to prepare themselves for that. neil: from your vantage point, and there are a lot of open questions, including this witness of course who saw kohberger, saw the blood and all of that and nothing was reported or no 911 calls, i mean, that raises a great many issues. like how are you kind of sorting that together? >> well, you remember, she's a victim in this case. she is-- everybody kind of forgets that, you know, she's still a victim in this case and the fact that she was able to give additional of identification i think is beneficial to the case. she was able to give kind of height and build and what they looked like a little bit, the bushy eyebrows and things along those lines and in regards to going back to her rooms, she

was scared, scared to death and rightly so. this guy had just murdered four people in the home. so, you know, who knows what was going through her mind, but, you know, there's -- the goncalves family doesn't have any ill will towards her or anything like that. neil: understood. i'm curious, kohberger and his connection to kaylee, i guess we still don't know. if the family heard anything, known anything? their daughter refer to him in any way, shape or form? >> no, nobody knew about kohberger until he was arrested. we didn't know anything until the name was given to the public. so, obviously, since then, since we have a name and a face, i think all of the families are going back and looking at if there's any connections between any of the victims in the case and we're all getting that information together and we'll supply all

of that information to the moscow police department and then they'll make a determination whether they want to release any of that information. but i think that all of the families are taking a look now that there's a face and a name, to see if there was any connection. neil: and so far to your point, we've not heard that among the other three or the authorities might know and venturing a guess. and they do have kohberger obviously behind bars now and i'm just wondering, as a family attorney, this is going to be a long ordeal for them. this might not even come to trial if it goes to trial, until possibly next year. how are they grappling with that? >> well, they're prepared for the long haul. it's one of those things the criminal justice process there's a lot that goes into it and i'm guiding them through it. you know, we're a team and just like i think any good attorney you get emotionally attached to

your clients, we're in this together. i want to see the outcome of this as much as they want to see the outcome of this. we're preparing for it. there's nothing to prepare for if you start hearing facts about the case that, you know, how a guy murdered your daughter, but i think there are days that they'll take a break from those things because they want to preserve the memory of their daughter, but there's always going to be a representative from the goncalves family at the court proceedings. neil: shanon, thank you, very, very much for coming on and we're getting new information bit by bit, but they're tragic and reveal something that doesn't seem necessary to happen in the first place. four people are dead and growing questions, as to a, whether one man could be behind that and if so, why? that's the question everyone's requesting. why? we'll have more after this.

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>> delayed by a new, little bit more conservative congress is in play right now and they want to do a lot of things. kevin mccarthy was speaker of the house at 1:39 this morning, and one of the things he wants to do is control spending and hear from some of the members who were reluctant in the first place, but all the money to ukraine, and every penny that goes out and some in ukraine think maybe u.s. changes its posture. let's look at that from their neck of the woods, alex. >> hi, neil, the u.s. is laying out the details of the new

$3 1/2 billion aid package that will include bradley fighting vehicles for the first time and the ukrainians feel it arrive in a matter of weeks. bradleys are not tanks, they're tracked vehicles and equipped with cannons and a machine gun. germany and france this week planned to send their own armored vehicles and in addition germany will follow the u.s. and send a patriot missile defense system. and despite russia's declared cease-fire on what is christian orthodox christmas, the ongoing war didn't stop people around the country, and church gathered for a historic holiday service at one of ukraine's holiest sites for the first ever led ukrainian church authority service which was not led by the russian authority, as the church tries to sever

ties. and one of those at the service, was a world scholar in religious studies. >> and this is the first time in our history when ukrainian church, follows ukrainian church gathered here in a more sacred place. >> now, as far as what took place in russia today. russian president vladimir putin attended a service all alone where he praised the russian orthodox church for support around the world and fighting in ukraine, neil. neil: thank you very very much for that. in the meantime, just want to let you know that they're still sorting out what will be the first order of business of this new congress, the 118th congress taken over, delayed a few days because of the fight over the speakership and of course, kevin mccarthy is there

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>> how do you prevent a situation like this from happening on every type of contested vote going forward over the next two years? >> i think what you will see by having this now, we've worked

out how to work together. neil: and kevin mccarthy does it on the 15th time, but man, oh, man, it was quite a rocky ride getting there and got pretty nasty and could have gotten physical there last night. and a mccarthy backer from the beginning, dusty johnson and i don't want to say south dakota congressman-elect. he's the real deal. good to have you back with us, sir. >> thanks, neil. neil: what did you make of in? did it cause any bruised egos or worse? >> there are some bruised egos and there are some relationships that are going to take time to mend, no question about that. and i know americans are looking, oh, gosh, are we going to get things done next two

years? yes, the house is a raucous bunch, but i think we'll get things done under kevin mccarthy. after an average leader, this group might be ungovernable, but this guy does have the emotional intelligence needed to have a chance to do some good things. he might be, but he didn't strike me as winston churchill in this process. not to say that the numbers are close, i get it, but some people are interpreting by his difficulty getting these votes he needed as a preview of coming attractions and it might be simply because of the numbers he's dealing with. there are only 10 more of you guys than the other guys in the house. is this just going to be the way it is? >> it is going to be difficult on plenty of occasions, but there have been narrow margins in the past. it can go either way. half the time it's dumpster fire after dumpster fire. the other half of the time the

narrow majority creates a unit. es esprit decourse. >> and you don't hang together. and that's the rap? and nancy pelosi, she got everybody to hang together and she got alexandria ocasio-cortez when they were going at each other to hang together and she was dealing with a very narrow margin herself. i'm not here to take sides, but i'm saying can kevin mccarthy given this experience where he had a heck of a time keeping people together, without making big concessions? where does that go? >> well, it's not how you start the week, it's how you end it, i think. there was not a single republican house member who voted against kevin mccarthy in the end. neil: there were six who voted present. there were six who voted present. >> sure. there were.

if you give -- if you take a look at what those folks were staying on monday and tuesday, neil. it would have been almost unconceivable that they would have voted present. neil: a valid point. >> and that didn't happen by accident. neil: so the back drop of this, the president is going to the border tomorrow. going to mexico after that. you know, he was doing all of this stuff touting the economy and all in this vacuum where you guys-- not blaming you, sir, but back and forth at each other. do you think he took advantage of that? do you regret that this whole thing happened that he was able to do that? he had the microphone. >> well, joe biden is still -- he's not doing well, neil. yes, maybe there can be a little bit of political theater on the house floor to distract people for a few hours here and a few hours there, but it's not going to pay for over two million people illegally crossing the border in a year, it's not going to pay for the kind of inflation, the crime, the drugs that we've had.

there's no one looking at joe biden and all of a sudden thinking that he is this great once in a generational leader because the house republicans had kind of a messy week. neil: quickly. one of the things that i noticed was that there will be spending tied to the debt ceiling negotiations. people immediately interpreted that, oh, the republicans are going to be pushing to shut the government down. what do you think? >> well, we're not going to shut the government down. or at least we shouldn't. it does not have to come to that. what we need is-- >>. >> one of your conservative colleagues say he's open to that, open to doing that, an arrow in his quiver. >> well, when-- of course, that's the good negotiating tactic. you should be willing to prevent you'll be up to the brink and washington d.c. is good about making threats, we should not get there. we should have democrats and republicans who acknowledge 33 trillion in debt is

indefensible. neil: got it. >> and i've got to tell you. neil: real quick. >> and the folks, 20 holdouts that are unreasonable, they know we're in the going to get out of this mess overnight and they want to bend the curve in the right direction. neil: and congratulations again, south dakota congressman, not congressman-elect. they're back in business. fox continues after this. witg process is fast and flexible. behold... all that talent! ♪ this is how we work now ♪ ♪ ♪ charlotte! charl! every day can be extraordinary with rich, creamy, delicious fage total yogurt.

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or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for cash. even a term policy. even a term policy? even a term policy! find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com. >> agree in their tallies that the total number of votes cast is 428, of which the honorable kevin mccarthy of the state of california has received 216. [cheers and applause] >> kevin mccarthy elected speaker of the house in a late night session after 15 rounds of voting. the final tally 216 votes for mccarthy, 212 fo