yamiche: divided government and a divided gop. >> a speaker has not been elected. yamiche: multiple rounds of votes over several days and there is still no speaker of the house. >> we won't elect anyone that will unite the republican party, kevin mccarthy is not that person. yamiche: republican kevin mccarthy becomes the first person to repeatedly lose the speakers ballot in more than 100 years, but he is gaining ground after closed-door meetings, concessions, and compromise. meanwhile -- >> we can work together, we can get things done, we can move the nation forward. yamiche: president biden enters this new time with a high-profile show of bipartisanship.

plus, the nation marks two years since the capital attack. next. >> this is "washington week." corporate funding is provided by -- >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect. we offer a variety of no-contract plans, and our u.s.-based customer service team can find one the fits you. to learn more, visit consumercellular.tv. >> additional funding is provided by -- koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation. committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. sandra and carl delay-magnuson. rose hirschel and andy shreeves. robert and susan rosenbaum. the corporation for public broadcasting and by , contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ >> once again, from washington, moderator yamiche alcindor.

yamiche: happy new year and welcome to "washington week." this new year has brought new problems to the nation's capital, the likes of which the country has not seen in more than a century. at this hour, still no speaker of the house, but after days of failed votes to elect the next speaker, congressman kevin mccarthy come along viewed as a favorite for the job -- for the job, is mounting a comeback. he is expressing optimism. >> we made some very good progress. we will come back tonight and i believe at thawill ha the votes to fish thi on atndimor a. te it reminds me of what my father told me, is not how you start, it is how you finish. yamiche: but there is still a small group of republicans who continue to oppose him. >> you only earn the position of speaker of the house if you can get the votes. mr. mccarthy doesn't have the votes today.

he will not have the votes tomorrow. and he will not have the votes next week, next month, next year. yamiche: their numbers are dwindling. in a week that was supposed to be formulaic has been anything but. heated arguments have broken out on the floor between gop factions. lawmakers's children to be seen sleeping as votes dragged on. house democrats have called the chaotic start embarrassing. >> first time in 100 years there is no congress. it is embarrassing, it is dysfunctional, it is dangerous, it is stupid. yamiche: joining me to discuss the tumuuous week of the congressional infighting and in action, ali vitali from nbc news. wi me at the table is yasmeen abutaleb from the washington post, carl hulse from the new york times, and susan page from usa today.

ali, you cannot go anywhere. kevin mccarthy is telling people he has the votes. what is the latest on whether he can pull this out? ali: i think we live here now. the good news is we think we will be able to move at some point tonight because the house is going to come back just a few hours from now in part because they needed to buy themselves some time for two republican members to make it back to washington. both of them had prior commitments that meant they needed to be out of town. they want part of the vote in congress today and those were votes mccarthy desperately needed because you know well, he needs every single yes he can get as he tries to get some of these six holdouts to either all vote present, or some different permutation that gets some of them say yes and others at no voting present, which would change the number he is

ultimately hunting for. we talk about the magic number of 218 and that can change depending on the number of total members voting in each balloting round. that's the other way team mccarthy is trying to use these intervening hours of adjournment to get the votes they need to finish this up. still, the conversations are having with sources on the hill is this is basically a done deal, but we put "basically" there because this process has been tenuously held together by lengthy backroom negotiations. those finally bore fruit today. the open question is what it will look like around 10:00 p.m. the thinking is it looks good for mccarthy but this process has dragged on so long and we will see it when we see it. yamiche: you talked about backdoor negotiations, what more do we know about the deals mccarthy has drug, especially when it comes to flipping the number of people he needs to get the speakership? ali: part of the reason they are

trying to move so quickly is in part because mccarthy's team feels they have momentum here and they want to lock it up before the weekend. the other part is because some of these concessions could anger moderate members and when they get a look at the rules package, which i'm told they will tryo vote on after midnight tonight, that is not necessarily something all of the moderate members will want to see. the goal of hard-line conservatives was to strip power away from the speaker and they were successful in being able to do that. perhaps the most important item here is a threat that will loom over kevin mccarthy for his entire perspective term as speaker, which is the idea that one member of congress could trigger the motion to vacate, effectively ousting t speaker, that's what chip roy, one of these hard-line conservatives that was a key part of the negotiationsis able to hold mccarthy accountable. there are looming fights ahead on basic funding of the government, raising the debt ceiling.

that's nothing to say of increased funding to ukraine. all of these are key pieces that if moderates start thinking about what mccarthy gave away, they might upset. that this was what he needed to do to become speaker. yamiche: such important reporting from the building where it is happening. carl, i've been asking how the world to kevin mccarthy end up here? is it distrust, policy, do they just not like him? carl: there are some people in the republican conference there that are just accustomed to being opposed. this is what they do, they fight, they resist, they are angry at mccarthy for certain things, first lights. they just want to turn the place upside down. i think the interestg thing to me is i was there myself all day , and a lot of people say kevin mccarthy is going to win this, if he does win at this, by basically having the stamina and

personality to sit there and be abused for a few days and not give up. there were times when it really looks like he should step aside. he had no choice. instead he sat there and took it. so this weird staying power will lead to him, it looks like, getting the speakership. same time, he got strong backing om his potential rivals. not like steve scalise, elise stefanik, people who could have been alternatives but instead they worked to get him through. mchenry negotiated this deal. things had to go his way and it really did not look good for him early in the week. tonight the republicans were feeling good about things. yamiche: susan, it was so tough to watch kevin mccarthy sit nde,th a it, as you could say abused or humiliated. i wonder what you make of this especially when you think of what comes next with the governing and what might be held

over his head as speaker? susan: maybe the alternatives didn't want the job given the configurations. in 2019, nancy pelosi faced a serious challenge to being elected speaker and she worked behind the scenes to make that work so that when they came out, she narrowly won the speakership on the first ballot. in that way, did not suffer any damage to her reputation or power. kevin mccarthy has given away the sword to his potential enemies and they will feel free to use it against him. a win is better than a loss, kudos if he makes a comeback tonight, but will he last two years and the job? i'm not sure he does. yamiche: thus the question i was going to ask. you wrote the book on nancy pelosi, i cannot imagine her ever having this happen to her. i remember when she was having the issue ofhether people would run against her and you had her giving away nice stuff

but also leaking opposition research on the people who wanted to be speaker and she was not playing around. susan: she gave carrots and sticks and she made it work, behind closed doors. speakers don't always have the same sorts of power. we've had speakers who are relatively not powerful, we've had newt gingrich amass power in the speaker's office and nancy pelosi increasing that, she called the shots for democrats in the house. that will not be the situation kevin mccarthy is in. he will get this job, a big job, line of succession, but it will not be the powerful job as in the past. yamiche: yasmeen looming over this, former donald dutch former president donald trump. he wasn't able to move votes for tenant mccarthy -- kevin mccarthy. what does this tell you about

the power or maybe the diminished power of donald trump? yasmeen: that's exactly what it is, he was pre-much a nonplayer in this race. early in the week he expressed kevin mccarthy after mccarthy sought out his support and you saw not a single one of the republican lawmakers move because of his urging them to. he put out a truth social posted that did not move anyone. we know trump has been on the phone trying to move three lawmakers so kevin mccarthy can lock this up tonight. the other remarkable thing, after everything he said against mitch mcconnell, mitch mcconnell had a good week compared to kevin mccarthy. longest servingra partyte leade inei thehe senate the same day kevin mccarthy is celebrating humiliating defeats. i don't remember what ballot we were on at that point and mcconnell has a speech on the floor, he goes to kentucky to celebrate a bill toward a bridge he's fought for a long time. it was a remarkable split

screen. the complete opposite of what donald trump wanted. i think that is a testament to how much he isn't a player in party politics at least on the hill at this moment. yamiche: it was like the -- susan: it was like the adults on one side, and the other side just mayhem on the floor of the house. carl: senate republicans were really happy with that contrast, let me tell you. yamiche: i'm going to ask about the split screen because it was quite a split screen. ali, also happening today is the second anniversary of the january 6 capitol attack. you told our producers that the same figures, matt gaetz, jim jordan, they are also at the center of this. what does that say about where our country is and where the republican party is? ali: it's this collision of two major stories, but it all has the same players in it.

at the center of the january 6 investigation, when you look at what the committee on earth -- unearthed, many people in congress were helping trump along the way. many of those people are the same names we've been talking about here during the speakers battle who are on the conservative side of it but also, kevin mccarthy at the center of it. he is one of five republicans who defied subpoenas from the january 6 the committ. he spoke with trump on january 6 two years ago today only to meet with trump at mar-a-lago and effectively normalize the trump within the republican party again, or at least be part of that process. you also have the reality that matt gaetz, andy biggs -- these are people who allegedly asked for pardons because of the things they were talking about with the white house during those weeks before january 6.

dan,no pern was e seplme jie committee wanted to talk to. scott perry, head of the freedom caucus, someone who has been important up to this point during speaker negotiations and who certainly will be in point because of the position his caucus has solidified for itself in these important committees. he is someone who was working to install jeffrey clark atop the department of justice during the lead up to january 6. all of these figures are so central here and i think it is important for us to underscore the fact that many of these people have solidified their power within this new congress. yamiche: carl, jump in. also know these are the same people. what does it mean that kevin mccarthy has given away so much to these people? carl: among republicans, what has happened is in these pretty arcane rules we are talking about is the way the house operates.

the freedom caucus, the conservatives want more influence and more committee spots, they want more opportunity to offer amendments on the floor. and listen, all parties have tried this in the past. we will open the amendment process, everybody can have an amendment. it doesn't work. you have a 435 people, you give everybody an amendment, they get very politically charged amendments. i think they are making a lot of promises they will either have to renege on at some point to do basic business or they will grind everything to a halt and i think it will be an extremely difficult to years. this week was sort of the preview. susan: democrats were having a very good time this week just sitting there and looking very disciplined while the republican side melted down, but it is bad news for democrats too. it's bad news for the business of governing. while president biden i think was not displeased at the display, it is bad news for him as well this year we have to do

things like raise the debt ceiling. carl: i thought biden should've been more forceful, he just said it was embarrassing. this is biden' problem too. he couldn't do much about it but i thought he was a little dismissive and think it could be a big pblem for him going forward. yamiche: especially as a reminder that because this house speaker has not elected, there can be nothing else going on. we don't actually have house members right now, we have member elect -- members-elect. president biden had january 6, he awarded medals to people that were integral to helping democracy get through this. what is your sense of how biden sees this day and what else is going on? yasmeen: it has meant so much to his presidency. he came into office with this at the foreground of how he would govern and he has given several speeches since he's been in office about threats to american

democracy. he gave a speech right before the midterm elections basically egging people to respect the results of the election and the process. we know this motivated him to run in the first place, president trump at the time in 2017 saying they were very fine people on both sides in charlottesville when a woman was killed. this has shaped so much of his presidency. son, as we expect, he is going to run again in 2024. took carl's point, it will make his job extremely difficult. there are basic things they need to get done that they probably won't be able to get done that will be just exceptionally challenging. i also think the white house sees this as a good foil for them headed into another campaign. this is why w'' dan't wto republicans, they do this. then it is more about don -- than just about donald trump. yamiche: with all this chaos in the lower chamber, in the upper

chamber, the senate, thepirit sha week present biden and senate minority leader mitch mcconnell traveled to kentucky to tout the instructor act passed last year and the benefits of working across the aisle. >> we disagree on a lot of things but here is what matters, he is a man of his word. he is willing to find common ground to get things done for the country. >> we all know these are really partisan times but i always feel no matter who gets elected, once it is all over, we ought to look for things we can agree on and try to do those. yamiche: this is the person you are covering every day, president biden. what was going into the president's thinking, take us behind the scene. yasmeen: i think the timing could not have worked out better for them, i'm not sure they

expected the backdrop to be that much of a split screen, but there are a couple of elements of this. one is that president biden and mitch mcconnell actually like each other. even though they disagree on a lot of things, they have a long relationship and they are both from an era where republicans and democrats try to get things done together. i think for them, i know from mitch mcconnell's side, the bridge, nothing was more symbolic of crumbling infrastructure in the u.s. and he could tell this. also for both of them, they are saying we can still work together and get things done. look at this clown show. the parties can come together. they had been looking for some type of event or bill of where they could showcase bipartisanship and try to show people that congre and the presidency could still function together. yamiche: ali, what is your sense of why this term was important to both sides, especially as you are up on the hill. i'm wondering if house members could even think about the other chamber and what they were saying.

ali: nobody was talking about mitch mcconnell if they were thinking about him. but i think yasmeen is right that the goal is to show this can still work. biden is still in many ways the same man who served in the senate for decades, a creature of congress. it's something he regularly talked about on the campaign trail. few months and certainly the. next two years, we will see two very different theories of how to be a republican in the post from the era coming out of congress, based on which chamber you are loing at. mitch mcconnell had a very different lesson he learned from the midterms than kevin mccarthy. mcconnell's lesson was the chaos did not work and he was using chaos as a stand in both for trump and the literal word chaos. what mccarthy and house republicans are doing this week only underscores the idea that they are going to represent messiness and dysfunction even

as they try to spin it as this just being the way they will move forward on a patto governing. this is i think what it will be the next two years, showcasing two entirely different versions of republicanism in washington. yamiche: it is such a good point. carl, what do you think mitch mcconnell gets out of this? in some ways it makes sense what president biden gets out of it. carl: i will say first nothing brings politicians together like hundredsf io o projects. mitch mcconnell wld not like me saying this but he is nearing the end of his career and i think he is an legacy building mode and he wants to be seen as somebody able to work across party lines. he also was famously in the past a big person directing a lot of money to kentucky. he helped biden a lot these last two years. they got some legislation done, they supported ukraine together. but i think mitch mcconnell just

really relished this moment, what was going on in the house and trump not having much influence, and here is mitch mcconnell and the president and several other senators celebrating their work together. it was really something. i did a piece on the last time the house had this big long run outvote 100 years ago and it was eerily similar. the senate immediately recessed and left town and let the house carry on. it's a great parallel. yamiche: i was going to ask you about the history, other any parallels you want to point out? carl: the fight was sort of about the same thing. it was about progressive republicans at that time trying to get more power, they wanted to offer more amendments, wanted more committees lots. -- committee slots. a lot has happened but congress is really the same. susan: there's a battle underway

for the soul of the republican party. president trump when he won election, he defined the party in a new way. but this next presidential election will be a battle that will play out the same forces we see in the house this week. yamiche: do you think there is any chance we get big bills? we are looking at shutdowns and raising the debt ceiling, but i wonder, is there a chance we get the big bills that widen and mcconnell were touting? susan: no. if we are lucky, we will fund the government and raise the debt ceiling. thea that some of the big legislation from the past two years can make it through this house i think is unlikely. carl: i agree. we will be likely if we don't have a default on the federal government. yamiche: is that what you are hearing? yasmeen: absolutely, they've been worried from before november that if house republicans took control, the budgets would be a big deal and that's why you saw the white house and senate, including

minority leader mcconnell, wanting an omnibus at the end of december to fund the government for a full year as opposed to bringing it up again in two months, because of what we are seeing this week. yamiche: ali, tell us what is coming up on your side of pennsylvania avenue. ali: hopefully they do their work tonight, that is the goal of team mccarthy. they think they are there but they cannick slain how they will get there. i think part of the reason we don't have the answer yet is because many of these six holdouts love the drama. they want to do it on the floor. that's what we are waiting to see. this story, as it has all week, unfolding in real time for all of us together. yamiche: certainly a story we will continue to follow, i'm sure we will have at some point house speaker, until then, members elect, and sleeping until then, thank you for joining us, this was a lively discussion with analysis and history. thank you so much. thank you to our panelists.

tune in saturday to pbs news weekend, we will have a look at pakistan's recovery efforts following lester's devastating floods. i am yamiche alcindor, good night from a wild washington. >> additional funding for "washington week" is provided by -- consumer cellular. additional funding is prided by -- koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation. committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. sandra and carl delay-magnuson. rose hirschel and andyhreeves. robert and susan rosenbaum. the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.]

♪♪ o0 c1 ♪♪ [ dog barking ] ♪♪ -in april 1944, with the outcome of world war ii hanging in the balance, two jewish prisoners lay hidden near the outer fence of the auschwitz concentration camp. -it was almost impossible to escape from auschwitz. [ dog barking ] -so many people were caught almost immediately and tortured and killed. [ dog growls, barks ]