♪♪ back with you now from washington. where there is still a ton of uncertainty, a ton of drama in the building behind me here. we're now just about an hour out from the house gaveling in for its second day of trying to get it together and vote for a new speaker.

sources are telling us that house republicans are on a conference call right now. they're trying to figure out what is the path forward to get a speaker in place. just within the last couple of minutes, we saw kevin mccarthy telling our team on the hill he thinks he will get to the magic number, 218, same game plan, he says. look at that right there. we have new reporting this morning into how he's trying to make this happen. he's been deploying five trusted allies to negotiate with these kind of republican so-called rebels here, trying to figure out what are the concessions that would be needed to peel off the votes for him to get there, even after they've been negotiating for a matter of weeks now. listen to what one republican defector had to say this morning? >> it remains to be seen. i want a resolution. i want us to elect a speaker. >> another wrinkle this morning, you have former president donald trump giving kevin mccarthy his strongest endorsement yet,

writing on social media, vote for kevin, close the deal. telling punch bowl news, he's taken calls from republican. he's trying to whip for mccarthy. but here's the thing, even with donald trump's backing, still not clear how he's going to move the needle. we've heard from president biden just in the last hour weighing in on what's happening. being pretty blunt about it. listen. >> a little embarrassing, he says. we've got a team of reporters here, ali vitali, steve kornacki, anna palmer. the people who are kicking us off this morning, ali, let me start with you. i had a conversation with

congressman brian fitzpatrick who is a republican mccarthy ally, has been trying to negotiate with members of the freedom caucus this morning. here was the biggest takeaway from that interview. nobody knows what's up and everything is up in the air. is that your sense? >> reporter:. the shrug emoji is the most used emoji on capitol hill right now. that's because all of this is truly unfolding in realtime and because it's a story that moves forward with the power of actually having members be on the floor and vote. and so all of this jockeying behind the scenes is important, because it gives us a sense of how people are trying to shake things loose. until they get on the floor and see what the plan is, that's where we'll get the first answer to what comes next, how long will this take, are any of these back door dealings working? that's what's happening right now. fitzpatrick is one of them who is trying to negotiate with these current 20 no votes and he made the point with you, and i thought this was an important

one, it's not like they're negotiating with a group of 20 who are all aligned along the same reasons. this is 19 individual or 20 individual negotiations with a few people who will never be flipped because they just don't want to vote for mccarthy and mccarthy can't negotiate on that. but the rest of them can be or potentially they could be persuaded to vote present which would take down the number from 218 to something lower. too many of them vote present, and you tip into a territory where democrats just have more numbers. that's the scenario that mccarthy and others have been warning against. certainly it's something that mccarthy and his team are aware of as they're trying to do this very delicate dance of breaking this very gridlocked moment down. but that's one of the strategies that they're trying to employ here, making the concessions where we can, and doing it with the people who they think could be flipable, because, again, not all of them are.

>> so bottom line, ali, what this sounds like to me, based on the reporting that your team has done this morning, based on the conversations i've had on and off the air, there are 20 members that have not voted for kevin mccarthy most recently. probably three of them are never going to do it. they do not like kevin mccarthy. it sounds like kevin mccarthy might be very willing to make 17 individual concessions to get these 17 people on board. fair? >> reporter: it might be what they have to do. 17 individual concessions, but maybe it's like ten real concessions and smaller ones to get people to vote present. again, each of these people have different things that they want. what chip roy wants is tons of procedural changes to the rules. what byron donald wants is different. yesterday, he was the last person to change his vote to make him the last person on this full screen of 20 people. he was just saying, it's clear there's no consensus here and you're not going to wear us down. because that was the mccarthy strategy yesterday. just keep doing the votes and eventually the magic of being on the floor will make it that these members have to vote.

they did vote and it wasn't the way that mccarthy wanted them to. but for donald, his calculus is different than chip roy. certainly different than scott perry, different than matt gaetz. all of them are individual and that's what makes it so hard. >> we've been talking about a lot off the air with our teams is, okay, what is going to be different? in 55 minutes when the house comes back into session, what is going to have changed between yesterday at 6:00 p.m. when that third ballot failed and today at noon where there may or may not be this fourth ballot that happens for the speakership. one of the things that has changed is that former president trump is flexing some muscle here. trying to help kevin mccarthy round up the votes he needs which that is different from donald trump just putting out something on truth social. him working the phones and getting involved more vigorously, that could be something that makes a difference for perhaps some of

these trump-allied running back defectors, no? >> listen, it's a good sign for kevin mccarthy, the fact that he was having a little bit -- a tepid response to mccarthy's speakership bid and not that endorsement and taking that extra action of actually receiving phone calls, taking phone calls, trying to put -- get these folks on board with him. it's a big signal to mccarthy that the former president wants him to do it. i think the big question is, does it matter? will it be a deciding factor for these 20 republicans? that's the thing we don't know. i think the other thing we really don't know is, are they going to just come in and go into recess again, which is a possibility that we've been hearing, and will be something that we're going to watch closely. if nothing has changed in the overnight matter in terms of mccarthy being able to get some momentum here, do they just push off this vote one more -- hours

or a night. that's something to watch closely here. >> but wouldn't they need democrats to get on board with that and will democrats do that? do we have any reporting on that? do you have any reporting and i'll see if ali wants to jump in if we have reporting at nbc? >> yes, we are reporting in our special edition this morning that the democrats are not going to help republicans on that. they would need to be able to vote and get those 20 on board to pass a motion to make that happen. >> ali? >> reporter: look, on the other side of this too, democrats would plan to whip against this because there's no reason that they would try to help republicans continue to buy themselves more time to look less chaotic. for democrats right now, you saw some of them yesterday saying they were going to the floor with popcorn. they were fully aware of what was about to happen and they're fully aware of what happens now. some members of democratic leadership have been talking about the fact that republicans are now solidifying themselves

in the eyes of the american public as a party that is chaotic when they're in power. this is the first impression for the american public of what it looks like to have a republican house majority. americans don't care how slim the margins are or the procedural rule changes, necessarily. they care about, are things functioning? right now if you look at the house, they definitely are not. >> we have a graphic on scene of things that mccarthy could do to try to get some of these 20 members on board, the one-member threshold meaning it could take one member instead of five as has been proposed right now to call a vote to oust the speaker. it would weaken the future speaker's power. procedural negotiations, budget stuff, the release of january 6th files, creation of a church committee looking into the fbi and a concession of not being kevin mccarthy. that's something that some conference members want to see. >> i mean, it's a huge problem for mccarthy. and you can see it in ali's

reporting today about the lieutenants he's put out there to do the negotiation. if kevin mccarthy was able to do the negotiations with the members, he would do it. but he's having to deploy other people to be adversaries. the relationships have grown frayed between him and -- we call it a set of 19 or 20 people. i think for kevin mccarthy, the question is, are any of these people operating in good faith and i think the second question is whether trump will help today. trump has supported mccarthy repeatedly. that's like 0.7 of the way for trump. he's not hammered his allies publicly. we've seen him do that before when he wants somebody to change their behavior. you're not seeing trump come out against matt gaetz and tell him to shut up and sit down. trump is now all in, sort of, publicly all in. he's attached himself to mccarthy but he hasn't gone that extra step.

>> you have new reporting on nbcnews.com. i commend folks to read that. steve kornacki, let me go to you. how many people would kevin mccarthy need? >> that's the other question here. if we were talking last hour about the idea of mccarthy picking up 11 more votes. you have the 20 republicans who voted for jordan. mccarthy picking up 11 of them. i mean, huge, huge if for all the reasons you're talking about. but just mathematically, getting those 11 and then the other nine voting present and what that would do, it would lower the threshold. so the magic number to elect a speaker, if nine voted present, would fall to 213 and that would allow mccarthy to become the speaker by a margin of one vote over hakeem jeffries. if they tried this strategy and

screwed it up somehow with, the coordination was off or some of these 20 decided they wanted to, you know, kind of go their own way for whatever reason, you know, you could -- if there were 11 who voted present, right, there's 434 total votes right now, if 11 republicans vote present, that means there's only 423 official votes cast and the magic number with 423, 50% plus one, would be 212. so all democrats present and voting for jeffries, if that continues to happen, if 11 republicans abstained or voted present, that would reduce the number to 212, mccarthy obviously would not be able to catch jeffries and jeffries would actually win the speakership. that is an extremely far-fetched scenario. if it started to go in that direction, there wouldn't be panic on the republican side

saying, hey, get through this vote. make sure jeffries doesn't become speaker. but that's the math. 11 republicans voting present and then every democrat continuing to vote for jeffries. this, by the way, the democratic unity on this, that's the other variable, it sounds like an easy thing. this is the first time in more than a decade you had a speaker vote where every democrat has been present and every democrat has been voting for the democratic candidate for speaker. you haven't seen a couple democrats voting present, abstaining, casting symbolic votes for others. and that's crucial to the map that democrats continue to do this from their standpoint. that they all show up, stay in the chamber and vote for jeffries. because if even a handful of democrats get fed up with this for whatever reason and start voting present or start leaving the chamber, again, it has that same effect of lowering the threshold and gives mccarthy more wiggle room.

>> breaking it down as always. thank you. the conference call has been going on for a half an hour for republican. any nuggets out of that yet? >> reporter: we're still working on that, especially as it wasn't necessarily all republicans who were on it and certainly we've seen some of them floating around the halls here too. we'll be asking. >> thank you. stay close to a camera. appreciate you both. anna palmer, stick around for a moment. we're going to be talking in just a minute what democrats, what the move is there for them. we heard from president biden. we'll talk more about that. plus, how deep are the divisions inside the republican party? is this just about not liking kevin mccarthy? how far does this actually go? stay with us on msnbc, our special coverage continues. veras i'm jonathan lawson here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85, and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. what are the three ps? the three ps of life insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price.

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our shipping process was painfully slow. then we found shipstation. now we're shipping out orders 5 times faster and we're saving a ton. go to shipstation.com /try and get 2 months free. we are back with our special coverage of the second day of voting set to begin, we believe, in just about 45 minutes for the next house speaker. it's republicans who seem to be

in disarray this morning. democrats in array, apparently, throughout this vote yesterday, one more republican splintered away from voting from kevin mccarthy. hakeem jeffries to 212 votes. every democrat in the chamber stayed united. let me bring in donna edward, anna palmer. congresswoman edwards, let me start by clarifying something. kevin mccarthy, turning that sound around, when he walked in, he didn't say i think we'll get to 218. he said, i think we can get to an agreement. he's feeling confident that there will be some kind of an agreement. what you're seeing are democrats for now holding firm all backing hakeem jeffries. there had been some speculation over the course of the last 18 hours that perhaps if this dragged on, you may see some democrats get sick of this, peel away, et cetera, is that your

sense? are you hearing anything about that? or is that simply a concern that democrats are learning to move against here? >> democrats are united behind hakeem jeffries. i think democrats are also prepared to stand back and let them go through their dysfunction. there's no reason. i know there's been speculation about maybe democrats will craft some sort of consensus. i have not heard that at all from within the party. i think that democrats are on course to be there for the duration. all 212 votes continuing to be cast for hakeem jeffries. however many ballots there are. >> anna, let me go to you here, because i want to play what we heard from congressman pete agular on the way the democrats are navigating this moment.

watch. >> democrats are unified. house democrats are unified. you saw that yesterday. we're unified behind lowering costs, creating good-paying jobs and building safer communities. the contrast between house democrats on the chaos and confusion taking place on the other side of the aisle could not be more clear. >> from the public messaging, anna, it seems that there's virtually no chance that any dems would peel off for a so-called consensus candidate, maybe somebody who could come in out of nowhere, ride in on the proverbial white horse and get support. >> i think the unity candidate is a little bit like a theme from the west wing. i have a hard time seeing it in today's politics that actually happening. i think democrats, as you saw there with mr. agular, are looking with amusement in some ways of how republicans are struggling to organize themselves, much less, what's

going to happen. once this speaker vote comes to an end and to a conclusion here. whenever there's members and they're waiting around, they have side conversations that i don't see any true movement or serious negotiations happening with any kind of unity candidate. >> remind us of the stakes here. this isn't about messy drama on the republican side going down live for everybody to watch on television, this is about the fact that the house is paralyzed. there is no house. nobody is sworn in. we've had a couple of members on last hour who said we don't know if we're getting paid. there's a national security concern here. this is -- the longer this lasts, the more serious this gets. >> well, this is really serious that the house is not able to function at all. we do not have a 118th congress yet until a speaker gets seated. but i also think that for democrats, it's also an opportunity where they display

their unity and their commitment to governance. i think even if republicans get through this mess that they're in, there hasn't been a demonstration of any commitment to governing the country. and so surviving this vote is just the first step in the chaos. i see chaos down the line however this shakes out because you will have a group of republicans who will hold things up on crucial issues. but it is really serious. if something catastrophic were to happen, we don't have a third-in-line to the presidency because there hasn't been a speaker seated yet. >> we do. and it's patty murray. she's second in line to the presidency. not the speaker of the house based on the rules of -- based on the constitution, basically. good point. thank you very much. stay with us. anna palmer, stay with us. we'll check back in to you as we

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some new significant reporting just into us in the last 90 seconds or so. that is this, when the house comes back into session 35 minutes from now, at noon eastern. nbc news is reporting that house republicans could try for a motion to adjourn until tomorrow. to press pause on this whole thing, come back tomorrow, and try again leaving the house without a speaker or without any sworn-in members for 24 hours. according to multiple sources familiar with these negotiations. this would buy the mccarthy more time to figure out how to negotiate, what concessions they could deliver. but it is also not a done deal. that is because democrats would whip against supporting this. democrats aren't trying to help republicans buy themselves more time, for example. that sets up what we may or may not see 35 minutes from now. will there be a motion to adjourn? will it succeed, or will there

be a fourth ballot now for somebody to become the next speaker of the house. kevin mccarthy wants it to be him. as he was walking into the building, he spoke to reporters about what he thinks is going to happen. watch. >> what is your game plan today? >> excuse us. >> how are you going to get more votes, sir? >> has there been progress? >> that was kevin mccarthy -- tough to hear. there's a lot of background noise there. but that was kevin mccarthy saying he thinks he can get to an agreement. i want to bring in vaughn hillyard, david jolly, and brendan buck. i saw ali vitali pop up on my screen. you were the won reporting about this potential motion to adjourn. we're going to know whether it's going to happen within the next 30 to 40 minutes, right? >> yeah, i just sort of -- i float at all times.

>> the ghost of ali present. >> exactly. the new reporting that we have from myself and others is that they're going to try -- or that there's a desire to do a motion to adjourn until tomorrow. it would benefit the mccarthy side, it would give them more time to negotiate, it would also save them another embarrassing round where either nothing has changed or they just lose, again, in their quest for speakers. democrats are likely to whip against this, but it's also not clear that all republicans would be on board, specifically this 20-member coalition that we keep talking about, the ones that are voting against mccarthy. some of them have even tweeted what happens at noon today? this is scott perry specifically, he said what happens at noon today? i don't know, but i'm not backing down. so it's not necessarily assure thing that these members of the freedom caucus, will let mccarthy buy themselves more time. >> what will be the incentive

for the 20 no-mccarthy voters to let kevin mccarthy have more time? >> maybe they're getting something. maybe these negotiations are going well, but going slowly, and some people feel that they're getting what they want. they're building trust. they're having their needs met in some way. that's possible. but we haven't seen many of these members yet. they're the first people, frankly that i would want to ask this question to because it doesn't matter that mccarthy's side wants to do this. it's important for us. but it matters more if these 20 folks go along with it. you know democrats aren't. this works for them as it is. they're going to let republicans sort themselves out. but if any of these members who were on the screen right now can work together to stay together and not go for this motion to adjourn until tomorrow, that is, again, another and slightly different wave of chaos in the house. >> ali, i'm going to let you work your sources. come back and haunt us again when you have more. brendan buck, let me turn to

you, this would be a move that kevin mccarthy would want. it would be tough for him to take a fourth ballot, fail again as the speaker and then the cake is getting baked all along, right? >> this should dash any hopes that democrats are going to bail kevin mccarthy out. they won't let him take a break to find the votes. >> much less vote for a consensus candidate for speaker. >> or vote present or whatever it may be. this is raw politics and they love -- the republicans -- it was supposed to be their day of joy, taking over. and democrats were having the times of their lives on the floor watching this play out. they don't care. they're not -- they don't want republicans to be in charge so they can start their investigations or, you know, pass whatever bills they want to do. they're not going to help kevin mccarthy. and this shows you in the house, you have to have 218 votes. you have to have 218 votes to become speaker and to take a break. this is the weird rules we're operating under. they voted yesterday to come back at noon.

the order of business is going to be vote on speaker, unless they can vote to take a break. if they vote to take a break, it would have to be, again, to a specific time. when the house is generally in session, you can pause and say we'll come back when we're ready. under these rules, you have to pause and come back to a specifically time. and so the rules are pretty rigid here. there aren't a lot of options that they have. but i think it underscores the long road that kevin mccarthy has. he's not in control of the floor in any way. >> is your phone blowing up this morning? >> a little bit. >> what are people saying? >> people are wondering what happens next if kevin can't get there. i think it's premature to have that conversation. look, kevin mccarthy has made clear, he's in this for the long haul. the question is, are his allies in it for the long haul? it's easy for kevin to say he's going to stick around for a long time. when they're talking about other people, it gives a little sign of weakness that they're not ready to stick with him for very long. that starts showing weakness and you start seeing slippage.

very interested to see if they have a note at noon because they have to, weather they lost anybody. freedom caucus members are trying to put out the vibe that they're picking up members and that would obviously be a really bad sign. if the bottom -- i don't think the bottom is going to fall out. if you start seeing significant movement, that's when kevin mccarthy is in real trouble and he may not be able to get off the floor. they have to keep having these votes. >> let's talk about the potential for a consensus candidate. with the stipulation, let's all be real clear and real frank here that this is a highly, highly unlikely scenario, right? i think anna palmer said it best, it's a west wing, aaron sorkin thing that this can happen. you're talking with somebody whose name is being floated out there who is saying, i wouldn't rule it out, fred upton who is retired from michigan here. you talked with him just within the last hour or so. tell us more about what he said and about the pragmatism of it

all. >> this is a man who is widely respected not only within the republican caucus but also the democratic caucus. when i talked to him this last hour, he said, look, i've been retired for 24 hours after 34 years in congress. but this is a man who is not turning down the idea that he, if we were to talk days into the future here, would potentially accept the speaker of the house role and come back to the united states congress to do so. take a listen to part of our conversation. >> you wouldn't rule out potentially serving? >> i have not ruled it out. i've not taken that stand. if you're in the majority, you can't pick your leadership and move the ball down the field, it shows that you got real problems. and that's -- i think what the country is watching, firsthand, is these votes that are prolonged, rollcall votes with nothing to show for it.

>> this would require a healthy majority of the democratic caucus to instead of voting for hakeem jeffries, come and vote for the likes of fred upton as well as pulling over a few of the more moderate republicans to vote for the former republican congressman colleague. when you're talking about this, you just had the conversation with brian fitzpatrick who is the current co-chair of the problem solvers caucus, well, he said if these hard-liners are not going to back kevin mccarthy, they need to say this and that's when alternatives needs to be looked at and potentially fred upton could be that. he was before leaving yesterday the vice chair of the problem solvers caucus. >> so congressman jolly, what's up? are you going to throw your hat in the ring? >> look, i've been on this upton scenario for a couple of months now. i think it's possible. but let's be very realistic about how you get there. there are three scenarios. the first is, kevin mccarthy gets this done. something happens in the next few days.

i think that's become highly unlikely. i think kevin eventually bows out. the second scenario is the caucus finding somebody probably already in leadership, steve scalise, elise stefanik, somebody down the line. if you look at 1999, they had to reach down to sixth or seventh in leadership. but the third scenario is, republicans simply are not able to form a coalition. they're not able to form a coalition to governor the house and in that scenario, i think democrats begin to say, okay, what is in it for us? can we get some rules changes? can we get different committee representation? what about these investigations into the white house? and that's the fred upton scenario, but i don't know that it has to be fred upton. there are other members in the house. you could look to a tom cole of oklahoma. whoever that unity candidate would be is going to have to be almost universally respected by republicans, 150-plus republican votes and hakeem jeffries could

let his members vote. but democrats don't need to do that now, we're a long ways for that, we're talking something into next week or the following week before we end up in that scenario. >> and david laid out one part of that, democrats would have to negotiate with republicans. republicans would have to give something to democrats. i think that's why that's unlikely to happen. if republicans started giving democrats things, that would set the house republican congress on fire. there would be almost nobody willing to vote for somebody in that scenario. >> stay with us. vaughn hillyard, we should your service, my friend. you have more to do this afternoon. we'll talk again. appreciate it. we've talked about these various factions of the republican party that may or may not come together in the next 25 minutes. maybe call a time-out and come back tomorrow, maybe not. maybe they'll move forward. lots of questions on how this will go. we'll talk about the potential to bring them together coming up in just a minute. together cominp in just a minute

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this whole house paralysis thing has given us a preview into what the next two years could look like with the house controlled by republicans considering the civil war in the party on full display. here's how mike lawler put it earlier today on this network. >> it looks like a game of chicken, but the bottom line here is this, the vast majority of the republican conference supporting kevin mccarthy for speaker. and we are not going to allow the conference to be held hostage by a handful of members. >> joining us now is "washington post" congressional investigations reporter, david jolly is back with us along with brendan buck. you noted in "the post" this morning that what we're seeing play out is the, quote, culmination of an internal divide that had in the past helped bring down the speakerships of republicans john boehner and paul ryan with members of the conservative house freedom caucus asking for a range of demands in exchange

for their votes. but this time, jackie, it's different, right? >> slightly so. i think that there are definitely two competing tensions at play here, one, how did kevin mccarthy fail in his own way to sort of assuage and win over this bloc of hard-line republicans who are refusing to support him, you know, over a dozen of whom are unlikely to budge as pete said yesterday until the cows come home, versus sort of the evolution of the way the house works and the way this process keeps repeating itself. you know, i think everything right now is a really big toss-up and a question mark. but i do think what we're seeing is this become more and more extreme as time has gone by, since the last time kevin mccarthy in 2015, as my

colleague noted, tried his hand at the speakership. i think today is really going to be a make or break it day for mccarthy and whether or not he's able to ultimately swing these 20 people who have shown no signs of relenting so far. >> and i think it was one of your colleagues who had that line about mccarthy's support, it's a mile wide and an inch deep. and that's coming to play in a big way here. when you look ahead, right, let's say -- let's flash forward to whenever this gets resolved. it ultimately will, whether it's tomorrow, three days, six weeks, you then have two years of this congress in session. can republicans get stuff done? >> no, absolutely not. but i don't think they anticipate getting much done with a biden administration and a democrat-controlled senate. they will pass messaging bills to draw contrast with democrats going into '24 around issues of

the budget and energy and labor and so forth. otherwise, you will see a healthy amount of investigations. they want to use investigations, jim jordan said it's all about beating joe biden, was his words at cpac a few months back. but the one things they have to do, and lawler might say they're not going to be held hostage, but they will. they have to pass an annual appropriations bill to keep the government funded and they're going to have to raise the debt ceiling. there's no way that they're going to be able to keep their entire caucus to give them 218 votes to do either one of those. so here's the problem for mccarthy and others, whoever becomes the speaker, they're going to have to work with democrats to keep the government open and that is a death nail for their future because these 20 are going to try to pull the rug out from underneath that speaker as soon as they can whenever that happens. >> there's so much vitriol around this too. you had matt gaetz say that

kevin mccarthy was selling shares of himself to try to become speaker. he's going to get another pelosi elected speaker. you have gaetz sending a letter -- kevin mccarthy already moved into the speaker's office. i don't know how that happens, but give us some insight into how this sort of infighting piece plays out here. >> the politics are different now. there's not the respect for the leadership. i would like to say with john boehner, you didn't cross him because he was like your father. you didn't cross paul ryan because he was your friend. everybody liked him. you didn't want to cross him. because kevin mccarthy has gone at this in such a transactional nature, that line that supports a mile wide but an inch deep is true. he's not fully respected by the people who are voting for him. he doesn't have the ability to

keep his caucus under control which is why you see some of the cheap shots like matt gaetz did last night. he cannot get there. he will not be the next speaker. there are not enough votes in the republican caucus to fall in line to vote for kevin mccarthy and it's in large part because of what you pointed out. there's not the respect for him today that he needs to get there. >> hang around, stick with us because we are about to get at least some or one of these questions answered in just about 14 minutes from now. when we expect the house to gavel into session, we're going to see what's going to go down. we're going to watch it live together here as one big happy family, the drama going down in this building here just behind me. we'll be back in three minutes. d me we'll be back in three minutes subway keeps upping their game with the subway series. an all-star menu of delicious subs. like #4 supreme meats. black forest ham and genoa salami. you can't stop that much meat. you can only hope to contain it - in freshly baked bread. try subway's tastiest menu upgrade yet.

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time-out until tomorrow, according to multiple sources familiar with the negotiations who confirmed that to nbc news. is that going to pass? will enough republicans vote to do that, including the republicans who are anti-kevin mccarthy? will democrats want do that? probably not. what's going to happen? we have our team on this as we get closer to a key moment for kevin mccarthy. brendan, pull back the curtain. we were talking about how one of the most interesting things is what we will see in, let's say, 12 minutes from now, when there's a motion to adjourn or this fourth ballot. really, those are the only two options, right? it's not like there's anything else the house of representatives can do until they get the speaker stuff

figured out. >> they will vote again. they can go through nominating speeches or they can make a motion to adjourn. that's all you can do. kevin mccarthy doesn't have the votes at this time. he wants to buy time to come up with a deal. democrats may have no interest in helping him buy more time. the people who are opposing him may have no interest in helping him buy time. they are in the driver's seat. they have him where they want him. they are showing that they are winning, that he is not making progress. they know another vote where he doesn't show progress is losing for kevin mccarthy. at this point, kevin mccarthy needs more points on the board. the longer this goes without putting more points on the board, his opponents will be more emboldened. you need 218 members who want to adjourn. they agreed. they said, we're good. if somebody does object to the idea of going adjourning, they will ask for a vote.

there will be a vote. it won't be roll call. it will be quicker. they will do it by electronic device. there will be a vote. if democrats say, we don't want to see kevin mccarthy out. we want to see him voted on over and over and have him lose and weaken him. they could make him go all day long and they wouldn't be able to stop until dinner and they want a break. >> if you are advising kevin mccarthy the way you advised speakers past, what are you telling him? what are you saying? >> he has to show confidence. that's one of the biggest problems i have seen. he has a lot of his allies out there floating other names and not really looking like they are in it for the long haul. >> congressman brian fitzpatrick came on with us and was like, i'm with kevin. he said everything is up in the air. >> some of them are. if you don't think you will pass the adjournment, don't try to do it. don't suffer that defeat. don't suffer a process defeat

right before another vote. if you don't think you can pause, go ahead. >> we have new reporting in as you were speaking which confirms, house democrats are making it official that they are going to whip against a motion to adjourn. as we have been talking about, dems will not give a life line to the republicans. they are going to resist. represent scott perry said he is not backing down. congresswoman edwards, not surprising democrats will hold firm. it calls into question what we will see eight minutes from now. >> look, i think you are going to have 212 votes against adjournment. then all you need are six republicans -- i count at least six who are never mccarthy, voting against adjournment. there you have it. you are going into another vote for speaker. ultimately, i think, disaster. why in the world would democrats

in congressman jeffries terms bail out a dysfunctional republican party? why, if you are opposed to kevin mccarthy, would you go to adjournment to give him time to work the caucus? i think this is a no win for kevin mccarthy. he is going to go to a fourth ballot. >> a live look at the house floor with 45 seconds left in this show. congressman jolly, final thoughts to you. >> we will learn a lot in the next hour about hakeem jeffries and the democrat posture. do they have their caucus on the floor to oppose this? are the rebels going to oppose the motion to adjourn? we will see kevin mccarthy not get through the next round. he is going to have to realize the math is not there for him. within hours, i would expect he has to have hard conversations about withdrawing. >> thank you. we are looking live at conversations on the house floor.

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would say, it's deja vu all over again in the house of representatives. another day with no speaker, no members sworn in, none of the people's business being done as kevin mccarthy continues wheeling and dealing in his quest for 218 votes. this morning, mccarthy received a boost in persuading the hard right rebels endorsing him from donald trump. posting republicans should take the victory and mccarthy would do a good job. we expect voting to resume at any moment. the first test of whether the trump endorsement persuades any of the never kevin faction that reached 20 members strong tuesday night by the end of the third roll call vote. joining me now, ali vitali. let's talk about what the possibilities are outside of another speaker vote in the next few minutes. there's talk of adjournment, delay, giving kevin mccarthy more time to pressure his colleagues. what's going