if you love a little levity after this jam-packed newsday, you're in luck. with a new deal in place after the nearly five-month-long writers strike, late night shows are back in production, tonight, i will be a guest. along with the very hilarious tracy morgan, on the newest addition of late night with seth myers. the first guested show since the strike. we've discussed, of course, the chaos in the house of representatives. and i make an impassioned case for many vance. trust, me is persuasive. you can catch that tonight at 12:45 a.m. on an nbc. that is all in on this tuesday night, alex wagner tonight, starts right now, good, evening. alex >> i love the deli billing of

tracy morgan and chris hayes. take that show on the road. >> i like to, i got to meet. or >> did he make an impassioned case for many events? >> i don't, know i should follow up with him and be, like did i persuade you on the mini van tracy morgan? he was your intended audience, i'm sure. thank you, my, friend will be watching tonight. thanks to you at home for joining me this evening. there is, as you, no major breaking news tonight, about the republican party and its leadership. from the former president of the united states, who is just smacked down by a judge in new york to the historic chaos unfolding in the house of representatives. where kevin mccarthy was just ousted as speaker of the house. and we are going to get to all of that this evening. but to understand how we got here, we need to go back exactly 1000 days ago. january 6th, 2021. when a violent mob stormed the u.s. capitol. in the wake of that deadly attack, minority leader kevin mccarthy took to the house floor and said this.

>> the president bears responsibility for wednesday's attack on congress by mob by armed rioters. he should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. >> that moment was the closest kevin mccarthy ever came to pulling himself out from under the heel of his party's hard right base. it did not last long. after that rebuke of donald trump, mr. mccarthy spent each and every day paying penance, trying to work his way back into the good graces of the far-right. less than three weeks later, mccarthy flew down to mar-a-lago to pledge fealty to donald trump. later that year, mccarthy refused to work with democrats to establish a nonpartisan commission to investigate the events of january 6th. when democrats went ahead with what became the january 6th committee, mccarthy did everything in his power to

discredit that investigation. when republicans narrow midterm victory headed them an equally narrow majority in the house, mccarthy was still working off his debt to the maga base. after 14 bruising, failed votes for speaker, he effectively sold his speakership to the maga caucus. he gave conservative house freedom caucus members coveted committee assignments. he opened a wide raging investigation into the so-called weaponization of the federal government. and he gave far-right republicans the ability to oust him from the speakership, with just a single member needed to call that vote. even after all of that, far-right republicans still wanted more. and speaker mccarthy obliged. he started a standoff with the white house over the debt ceiling. he opened an impeachment inquiry into president biden. he passed an ultraconservative bill to fund the government, which included massive cuts to social safety net programs.

but none of it was enough. and it all came to a head today. when speaker kevin mccarthy learned a lesson he probably could have learned 1000 days ago. you cannot appease the mob. this was the moment today when kevin mccarthy officially lost his speakership. >> the yays are 2:16. the nays are 2:10. the resolution is adopted, without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the office of speaker of the house of the united states house of representatives is hereby declared vacant. >> today, these eight republicans voted with all of the democrats in the house to remove mccarthy from power, to end his speakership. >> in a last-ditch effort to save mccarthy, his allies made overt appeals to democrats to bail him out. they asked democrats to vote with republicans to keep

mccarthy in power. but democrats in the house had already learned, over the last thousand days, they could not trust kevin mccarthy. kevin mccarthy had either ignore them entirely, or sold them out again and again, just this week, after democrats helped mccarthy avert a disastrous government shutdown, mccarthy went on television and try to blame democrats for the dysfunction. >> i wasn't sure is gonna, pasadena want to know why? because the democrats tried to do everything they can not to let it pass. >> democrats are the one who voted for this. and republicans to keep the continuing resolution a life? >> that moment was reportedly foremost in democrat's minds when they voted in lockstep against kevin mccarthy today. he had his chance to earn their trust, and he blew it. tonight, congressman mccarthy announced that he is officially giving up. he will not run for speaker again.

>> i believe i can continue to fight, maybe in a different manner. i will not run for speaker again. all have the conference pick somebody else. >> house republicans are now in the wilderness. uncharted territory. for now, congressman patrick mchenry will serve as interim speaker. he says he aims to hold an election for the new speaker next wednesday. on that note, republican congressman, troy kneels, has already nominated donald trump to be the speaker. and you can do that, because the speaker does not have to be a member of the house. does he have to be in good standing with the law? just asking, because today, a new york judge had to place a gag order on donald trump for lies he has been spreading about court officials working his trial. but when trump was asked about the man he used to refer to as my kevin, trump imposed a gag order on himself. he had nothing to say. so, just who gets to be the

next speaker of the house? very much an open question. maybe gonna take a few rounds of voting. or maybe more than a few rounds. as he was leaving the capitol tonight, republican congressman, dusty johnson, summed up his party's predicament, saying, you really have to wonder whether or not the house is governable at all. i'm not sure i wish this job on anyone. joining me now, jennifer palmieri, coast and exactly producer of the circus. and former communications director under president. i'm david plouffe, -- also the involvement station. and brayden buck, former aide to republican house speaker, paul ryan and john boehner. it is great to have all of you guys to talk about this historic moment. and historic not really in a good way. david, how are you thinking about what happened here today? >> well, i thought the last comment was probably the most important, going forward. i'm not sure it's a job worth having. someone will take, it someone will be elected.

they will make a bunch of commitments and promises to try to appease the right. like mccarthy, they will not be successful. so, i think it sets up chaos and turbulence and potentially damage the economy. in the not too distant future. so, you know, i think if you're an american, this is a pretty unsettling, if predictable, turn of events. at the end of the day, nancy pelosi was able to manage quite fine with a majority this narrow. but i'm not sure that anybody who comes in the aftermath of mccarthy has any chance of landing the airplane. in a way that's going to, i, think benefit both republican party. but certainly america more broadly. >> jen, it really bears mentioning, pelosi was speaker with very similar margins, and it looked nothing like this chaos. what did you make of democrats position here, absolutely not trying to help kevin mccarthy in any way? >> i talked to a lot of democrats today on the hill, i spent all day on the hill, alex,

remember how that was. >> oh, i sure do. >> your circus days. a lot of people sending that regards to you. but i talked to a lot of house democrats, a lot of moderate democrats, and i think, particular on the moderate democrats, they thought really long and hard about whether they should throw kevin mccarthy a lifeline. i think had they thought that they were dealing with somebody, a man of integrity, that this was something that would actually, that it continued speakership under mccarthy might help avert chaos. people might have considered doing that. but they were really convinced that he was not a man of their word. she was someone that had misled both republicans and democrats. and that i talk to congressman elissa slotkin, the hair having a mini civil war in their caucus. and they need to sort that out. i also talked to two of the members of congress, nancy mace and congressman tim burchett from tennessee. both of whom got voted to oust

mccarthy. both, sort of a surprise, that not both of those two voted 15 times to make kevin mccarthy speaker in january, right? i think, in both cases, they felt that mccarthy, in addition to not governing -- congressman burchett worried about government spending. he had personally slated both of them. he mocked congressman burchett, he thought is gonna pray about whether he should vote for mccarthy's speaker. nancy mace felt misled, vertically on some of the abortion policies that she expected to be dealt with in the house that weren't. it was a lot of bad faith across the board. that, in addition to the maga wing trying to control him, that bottom to this point. >> jen, just a follow-up on that. the way in which this was very deeply personal for those who voted to oust him, there was reporting that interview that kevin mccarthy did on sunday with margaret brennan on cbs,

was play to the democratic conference before they made their votes. really, just to drive a knife in his speakership, to show democrats just what a turncoat kevin mccarthy was. did you hear that from democrats? moderates who might otherwise been inclined to support kevin mccarthy, as it continued to hold on to the gavel? >> yeah. >> full stop. >> yes i did. full stop. it seemed this ran at the beginning of the house democratic caucus. it had the intended effect. but i think that, democrats have been wrestling this with us for a while. or the question how they're gonna deal with. it i think they really thought, it this is not a partisan decision. it wasn't like, oh, great we want to see chaos at the side. i think they really thought, we can't trust this man. we can't give him our vote. certainly, with no kinds of assurances. they're just gonna have to work it on their own. yes, it puts you in a dangerous situation that playoff described. but, you know, republicans have to be the ones to figured out.

>> but, dot, but what? what is the issue here? let's talk for second about nancy mace. who is upset, for personal reasons, for policy reasons. but is not someone who necessarily wanted the speaker to be more extreme on certain social programs like, for example, abortion. yet, the person she's going to end up with is likely to be more hard right than kevin mccarthy. is that not correct? >> certainly. i don't if they're further to the right, they're at least gonna have the backing of matt gaetz. every one of those folks who kicked out kevin mccarthy today know that they can now do that to the next person. whoever is speaker, is gonna have to look over the shoulder even more than folks in the past. this does not get any better, what dusty johnson said is absolutely right. we are not, right now, fit for governing. we are party much more made for being in the minority. we like to vote against things. my whole issue in all of these

votes, their problem is not really with the speaker of the house. it wasn't with me with kevin mccarthy. it wasn't with paul ryan or john boehner. these are the guys that don't like the realities of governing. there are some things you have to do when you're in the majority, like keep the government open. like raise the debt limit. like fund the government for the long term. deal with democrats. basic things like that. those are fireable offenses. it doesn't make any sense. they set a bar that he can never meet. the next person is going to have to meet that same bar as well. it's the problem being speaker these days, you are basically running around, trying to make the fantasies of some of these members become realities. when that's the game, you can never win. i understand, maybe the idea that he should stick up to the more. fight back. all that stuff that you talked about in the open, was enough to save mccarthy. but it was required to get to this point. that's the reality of being a republican speaker right now. you have to do so many things or they will throw you out.

it works really well for them, in their own political world. >> david, in this bizarre world in which we all, unfortunately live, some days i would say unfortunately. matt gaetz is incredibly powerful. and as a person is gonna play a role, as breaded, says in picking the next speaker. if you're joe biden, looking at all of this unfold, what is your assessment of the situation? as it concerns your own priorities? >> yeah, what a frightening fact that it is that matt gaetz is one of the most powerful people in one of the most powerful, the most powerful city in the world. well, listen, joe biden, -- almost every senate democrat had a lot of republicans, wants to keep the government open. so, that's a complicating factor, that's gotten harder. obviously, the list of legislation is gonna get dealt between now and next november is infinitesimal. beyond, that i don't think can expect much. i'm not i'm sure biden will find ways to lift this up on

the campaign trail. if you give donald trump in matt gaetz for control from the policy standpoint, from a leadership standpoint or a moral standpoint. you know, it's devastating. so, i think this dysfunction, i don't want to overstate it, because swing voters in arizona, wisconsin, pennsylvania, presidential race, don't pay that much attention to congress. but to the extent that trump circus looks like it's on steroids now. and the entire party is gonna follow him where it's not about, to biden's, point about governing. it's about theater in performance, but listen, i don't see how the government is going to stay open in 40, 3:42 days, whatever it is. because to brandon's point, i think the least just got a lot shorter. the least was already three inches. now, it's almost completely nonexistent. so, at the end of the day, it's gonna make the next 45 days harder.

but i do think, having all of that dysfunction as a backdrop for the presidential race, clearly, if donald trump is the nominee, one of joe biden's core arguments is going to be, you don't want to return to the circus. it's a supporting fact. >> a supporting fact. okay, jen palmieri, david plouffe, bring it back. we have a lot more ahead. please stay with me. including the eight republicans who voted yes on making david mccarthy the first speaker ousted from the house of representatives. it turns, out those eight republicans all have one big thing in common. after that, what happens when donald trump gets a gag order? stay with us. stay with us liberty mutual customized my car insurance and i saved hundreds. with the money i saved, i started a dog walking business. i was a bit nervous at first but then i figured it's just walking, right? [dog barks] oh. no it's just a bunny! calm down taco. sit duchess. stop! sesame no no. archie! walter don't, no, ahhhh.

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-- >> what's next? >> will you put yourself back on the ballot,? sir >> that was the now former speaker of the house, kevin mccarthy, moments after effectively fired from his job this afternoon. mccarthy walked right past reporters, ignoring their questions about whether he would resign with a big smile plastered on his face. now, most politicians would not want to be the reason their party leader had to make that kind of walk of shame. not just out of fear about what the party might do is retribution, but also, at a fear of how their constituents might respond. and, okay, most republicans did

not actually vote to oust kevin mccarthy today. but eight of them very much did. and if you look at how all eight of those republicans did in the 2022 midterms, you're gonna notice a pattern. they were all elected with incredibly safe margins of victory. in other words, they are not too worried about getting reelected. compare that to say, lauren boebert. here was her vote on the house floor today. >> boebert, no, for now. >> nay. >> no for now. congresswoman boebert sort of trying to have it both ways there. she wanted her rubble street cred, but in the end, she didn't actually vote to oust mccarthy. and that may have something to do with the fact that miss boebert's last election was one where she only won by 546 votes. in other words, lauren boebert cannot afford to alienate any voters.

but these eight people? they could. and i think that is an important part of the story here. still with me is jim palmieri, cohen executor of the circus. former communications director under president obama. david plouffe, and when the buck. branded, it seems to me, the safety of the members in these districts really has a role to play in just how insane they can afford to be, in terms of their behavior in the house of representatives. is this the root of the problem, and can republican leadership do anything about it? >> it's the root of much deeper than what happened today. absolutely. the culture of the house republican conference is always to do whatever is best for the base. that goes for everything that we do. it always used to be that way. when i first got to the hill, you knew who your majority makers. were those people in the swing districts who had to pay attention. do you understand you couldn't go too far. you understood you need to let them vote a certain way. because they were the ones who kept you in the majority. nobody thinks that way anymore.

everything is about, not only playing to the base, but also throwing your colleagues under the bus, if that needs to be the case. they're very cavalier with some of their swing district members. now, there are very many of them left, that's why it is. but nobody pays attention to the middle anymore. kevin mccarthy found that out very quickly. i don't see any reason that's gonna change course anytime soon. we only have fewer and fewer swing districts after maps are drawn each ten years. >> jim, there's also the strange cognitive dissonance between the far-right maga caucus doing as much as they can to make trouble for rhino establishments republicans. and then some of those moderate rhino establishment republicans, those who are left, trying to blame this entire mess on the democrats. which is what was happening today. republicans out there saying, speaker mccarthy is being thrown overboard because of democrats won't stand by him. my question is, who is that line of logic gonna work on? >> i think they were just spinning. they don't know what to do. we went from 2024 hours ago,

kevin mccarthy tweeted, x whatever, bring it on. 24 hours later, he is gone. and said he would not run again to speaker of the house. i think that they were just, you know, spinning their wheels, and churning, the default is to blame democrats for not standing by kevin mccarthy. i mean, what do you think would happen to kevin mccarthy have democrats started to vote for him? i think that republicans would've bolted from him even sooner. i just don't think there was any scenario today under which kevin mccarthy was gonna remain the speaker. >> david, is there any argument that republicans can make to swing state voters that doesn't make them look like a ship of fools? as a regards to the speaker vote. >> no. in the point brendan made is really important. i mean, i used to work on the hill for democratic leaders. the windshield we looked out

was swing members. i think that's what paul ryan did, that's what john boehner did. nancy pelosi certainly did it. that's different now. this is a very fragile majority that oath republicans have. if you just lay over presidential year turnout on the districts, the democrats should win somewhat comfortably. that's a model that -- i don't think so. again, i think, you know, you've got trump. you've got the chaos in the house. i think there's a lot of swing voters out there. who say they don't want to return to that. i think, particularly, if democrats, and i think they can make the argument, hey, if trump wins, and the republicans hold on to the house, they've got a decent chance of winning back the senate. there could be a trifecta. do really want to ship a full term used in charge? no. i think, again, present brendan's point is so important. the math gaetz of the world, it's not just, him most of the caucus, not all. they've created this false reality, it's a world they want to live. in which is not the world that exists.

in swing voters don't really exist in that world. it's all about catering to about 20% of the population, which is that hard-core maga base. >> well, david, just a follow-up on that. it defies logic, given that the vulnerable swing state republicans are the ones that have handed kevin mccarthy the speaker's gavel in the first place, right? brendan says, i think rightly so, that the house republican conference is very cavalier with her most vulnerable members. then >> yeah, i mean, cavalier is too strong a word. they don't care, basically. again, this is nancy pelosi. john boehner. dickey apart, pastor, all these folks. they had their governing hat they had to put in, of course. then you your political hat. in your awarded a ballot, those vulnerable members. particularly, if they have an air majority. that just does not seem, so, those are the people that are most interesting. when they go back to town halls. when they're doing interviews with reporters.

that those vulnerable republicans, in new york, california, and other swing states, this kind of chaos really doesn't suit them. again, this is a -- majority heading into a presidential turnout your election. it almost seems that many republicans in the house could care less. >> all, right, well to be continued, i suppose. brendan buck, david plouffe, jim palmieri. the co-host the new msnbc podcast, how to win in 2024. excellent. which is available now wherever you get your podcasts. thank you guys all so much for your time. i sincerely appreciate it. we have much more still to come tonight, including the humiliating split screen for the republican party today. the speaker ousted, the front runner gagged. what it says about the party of lincoln. that's ahead. but first, what donald trump did to earn a gag order in court today. neal katyal is here to talk about that, next. out that, next

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technically it in half, for donald trump to be gagged by a judge anger on it is new york fraud trial. it all happened after trump went on truth social and posted the name, photograph, and

instagram account of the judges principal law clerk. the post attacked the clerk for being in a photograph with the senate majority leader, democrat chuck schumer. then trump went to the cameras outside the courthouse and continued his invective. >> they rig the trial. fraudulent trial. attorney general is a fraud. and we have to expose her as that. you see what's going on. it's a rigged deal. frankly, you saw was what was just put out about schumer in the principal clerk. that is disgraceful. >> now, zhejiang orondo not take any of this lately. calling the attacks unacceptable, and inappropriate. he ordered trump to remove the post and according to nbc news the judge told the court to consider this a gag order on all parties, with respect to posting or publicly speaking about any member of my staff. the judge said that violations

of this order would lead to swift, meaningful sanctions. i am joined now by former acting solicitor general, neal katyal. neil, first of all, great to see you. new york city is where all the action is legally speaking haven't you heard. first of all, meaningful sanctions. what does that practically mean? >> well, it could mean, in an ordinary thing, if there's a gag order imposed, and it's violated, it means putting someone in jail. a gag order, alex, is really hard to get in a case. i don't think i've ever seen it in any of my thousand plus cases. >> really? >> yeah. , people know, the use common sense. it's kind of like failing kindergarten. to get a gag order imposed, you have to try. trump managed to work at it and do it. and succeed. but it took a lot of work on his part. now, i think the judge is basically saying, you attack a member of my staff, there will be serious sanctions. including even up to jail. >> well, and yet, as hard as it is to get the gag order, i

think it's the broad expectation that trump is inevitably going to violate it in some fashion, or slander some other person involved in this case, whether it's prosecution or the judge himself. would your expectation be that this is going to be a laddering up of a punitive ladder up, in terms of the judge issuing more gag orders, until, at some point, he is forced to something more drastic? >> yes. exactly. basically, if we're gonna ask, is trump gonna violate a gag order? almost certainly, yes. it's more likely that he'll violate the gag order than almost anything. then george santos being the next speaker. i mean, we're talking a significant probability he's going to violate the gag order. and then the question is, will the judge, at that point, take the really heavy medicine of putting a former president in jail? or will there be some sort of warning, and monetary fine first? i expect suspect a letter. it does really depend on exactly how trump violates. it >> isn't trump sort of goal, his existential goal, to stress test institutions?

and the judicial branch is no exception to that? the idea that, you know, part of this, he feeds off of this controversy. he gains strength from disruption. honestly, can you say, as a lawyer, that we as a country can really face a possibility of a former president, criminal defendant, being put in jail? that seems as necessary as that may ultimately be, that seems really hard to fathom. >> all right, your diagnosis of the problems he was exactly right to me. trump is the kind of a bull voldemort-like figure, who gets his strength by attacking institutions. he does it here. he's doing it in washington, d.c., with the january 6th trial, which there is another potential gag order that in a hearing on that. that's coming up. yes, that's how trump acts. and judges are loathe to jail anyone. particularly before a jury convicts or hears a bench trial. a judge finding guilt. you don't like to do stuff in advance. but when you have a litigant

who behaves this way, you got no other choice. let me tell, you if this were any other litigant, we would already see serious sanctions, perhaps even jail at this point. >> you mention judge tanya chutkan, overseeing the former federal case against donald trump in the 2024 election. she'd have a hearing on torbert 16, to determine whether others could be punitive measures taken against trump. the prosecution, the doj, would very much like the president to be censored in some way. or judges watching each other's behavior in this? does judge engoron, in the tish james case, set a precedent for judge chutkan? are these separate and apart from one another? >> well, the technical answer is, they're separate and apart from one of another. what happens in one trial should not carry over and spillover to the next. they do, of course. judges are human beings. and every time you crossed a threshold, other jurisdictions watch. for example, it's new york that crossed the threshold of indicting a former president. never been done before.

but the manhattan district attorney, alvin bragg, does that. and then lo and behold, you see indictment and other jurisdictions both the federal and fulton county, georgia, as a result. here, this judge has taken the step of issuing a gag order against the former president. yes, this is a new york civil trial. but you can bet dollars to donuts, judge chutkan, a very, very respected judge in d.c., is watching these proceedings and thinking, you know, i'm gonna wind up in this mess to. with a defendant whose mother himself off, attacking my clerks, attacking me. and the like. she's incredibly careful, and i think trying to do everything to avoid a showdown. but that showdown is now looking inevitable, and as you say, on october 16th, there will be a hearing. i do expect, at that point, there will be some sort of order imposed on donald trump. because the court can't tolerate this. trump is expecting, he's sitting there saying yourself, i'll bring this to the supreme court. my sanctions alike. it's my free speech. he will lose that every day of

the week. this is a supreme court. it regardless of people have disagreements about various things, abortion, whatever. but they really care about the decorum of court proceedings. the legitimacy of courts. and they will not stand for this kind of behavior with the court, with a federal judge. >> yeah, they've proven themselves to be particularly sensitive to criticism lobbed from the outside at the justices right. whether that criticism is warranted or not. one would imagine they would be sympathetic to the judges in this case. who may be the recipients of trump's slander. there is the kind of libelous rhetoric, of threatening rhetoric, that trump issues forth on social media. but there's also the fact, neal, he's been in this courtroom. he's kind of, a big presence in this civil case. he's outside of the court steps. he's doing his version of tweeting. i have to wonder, it's clear that this new york civil case, deeply affect him, perhaps because it's a financial case.

do you think that you could make the case that his presence in the courtroom, the thing is he saying on the courtroom, steps are themselves a form of intimidation here? >> well, i would distinguish retain what he's doing in court and out of court. in court, his absolute right to be there. it is trial. absolutely, if he wants to be there, watch the proceedings, he should. and he obviously cares about how he's perceived on this network and so, that's fine. the stuff he's doing outside the courtroom, i have a real problem with. and i think any second grader knows that you don't go and attack the judge in your case. that is not an appropriate way to behave. but trump backs the dignity even have a second grader. and i do think it's a real problem. if he continues with the attacks, and this gag order appears to only apply to tax on the staff, and not on the judge, if he keeps attacking the judge, i do expect yet another gag order to be filed. this time, about the judge. >> can they stop him from coming to court?

>> i don't think they can ban him from the court. it's a civil trial. you have an absolute right in a criminal trial to be present for your own case. civil, i think it's more complicated. he's not gonna be banned from attending is on trial. >> the only option, it will take several months, and he's gonna be busy with other cases in the meantime. >> neil katyal, no disrespect to kindergartners in second graders, -- >> absolutely. >> with a first grader into kindergarten, i can say, they're behaving a little bit better than some people. think of your time. great issue, neal. the still ahead, the vote to oust kevin mccarthy today was historic, it follows a pattern for the republican party. just how many of the parties speakers have been pushed out, when we are another. we're gonna count them, coming up, next. up, next the new iphone 15 pro is here. built with titanium, and featuring the most powerful iphone camera yet. get it with boost infinite and transcend to a wireless utopia.

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footprints behind that maybe a value to those who come after me. just as i have benefited from the footprints of those who i followed, to this most wonderful of institutions. the peoples house. >> dennis hunter, the man you saw just there. was this century's very first republican speaker of the house. he held the speaker's gavel from 19 99 to 2007, he got the job after the hasty departure of his predecessor. that's because when republicans lost five seats in the house during the 1998 elections, they

turned on him. and his longtime ally, congressman bob livingston threatened to challenge him for the speakership. so gingrich resigned and was ultimately replaced by him. to this day, dennis has her remains the longest serving leader of the republican conference, and he might have retired in the good graces of his party, except several years after his resignation, he was convicted of financial crimes related to child sex abuse. so, there was john boehner, who was speaker in 2015, faced the threat of a motion to vacate from congressman mark meadows. that motion never came to a vote, but the efforts alone led boehner to resign in the middle of his term. he served for four years as speaker. then there was paul, his time as speaker coincided with donald trump's election, and a new era of politics and the republican party, for that matter. he reportedly told friends that serving as speaker during the

trump administration was quote, agonizing. trump went after ryan with public insults in addition to trump's near daily controversies that ryan had to govern through. about 30 months into the job, paul ryan opted to vacate the speakership and also to retire from public office entirely. and now, as of today, kevin mccarthy, the party's fourth speaker this century served for 269 days before being ousted by members of his own party in a historic vote. so by our count here, as my friend chris hayes pointed out to me, arguably the most successful republican speaker of the house in the 21st century was a serial child luster. now to be fair, it is only 2023. the gop has 77 more years to burnish its legacy this century. but, while this is a trajectory so far. coming up, we're going to talk to npr's steve and ski about how republicans used to do it a

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lincoln once said i'm an optimist, because i don't see it any other way. >> that was how the former speaker of the house, kevin mccarthy, began his press conference earlier this evening. now, abraham lincoln may or may not have actually said that, but he definitely warned his colleagues at the illinois republican convention in -- that the house divided against itself cannot stand. 165 years later, the republican party is quite different from what it was one abraham lincoln issued that warning, but the party is again a house divided, i was doing its own speaker for the first time in american history. is there any historical parallel for the depth of this division? is there any way out of it? i know it just who do ask. joining me now is steve, host

of morning edition and up first an on pr. he's also the author of the new book deferral we must, how lincoln succeeded in a divided america which is out today. >> thank you so much. >> first, your thoughts on kevin mccarthy invoking abraham lincoln tonight. >> having written this book about lincoln's efforts to build political coalitions and builds a majority, i can't help but note that mccarthy lost his and there are a couple of factors there. it's been noted that just a few lawmakers were able to overturn mccarthy, but part of that has to do with the kind of politics they practiced over the past several years. you could argue that had republicans stood for something different over the past couple of years, they would've had a big majority now and in that case we would have much less influence. instead, mccarthy is who he is and by the way, matt gaetz also doesn't have a majority. and when lincoln set a house divided against itself cannot stand, what we meant was sooner or later one side or the other has to win. and we do not know who's going

to win this term for control of the republican party or the house. >> absolutely. you make the good point in the book that lincoln was someone ready to have difficult conversations and ready to have polite disagreements with one another. and i would suggest to you that the -- it's hard to imagine sort of camaraderie in the same way. and yet, when you look at the way in which democrats, with very little apology, secured kevin mccarthy's fate as an ousted speaker, one wonders if mccarthy had played that hand with democrats a little bit differently, if he had not perchance gone on the sunday shows and said that the potential government shutdown was all their fault. if he had made more of an overture towards democrats, could his speakership have been saved? >> i think democrats probably did not act on personal considerations, but on their calculation of their -- just as mccarthy was acting as he thought, on his interests.

and there may well have been a different politics, where democrats would have seen him to be in their interest to prop up mccarthy. but they had so many substantive differences, it seems clear to me that they want to republicans to have to sort out their house themselves. >> even though the net result may be a more radical far-right speaker. let's talk a little bit about the sort of parallel between now and i don't know the precipice of the american civil war, and sort of the parallels that you see between now and then, and whether we are inevitably headed towards a fight amongst and between each other. >> i don't expect a civil war in the way that we had in the 18 hundreds. one reason being that it's hard to figure out what it would be about. we have profound differences, but they're often about attitudes, they're about cultural trends. and i don't mean that there aren't real issues like abortion, like the economy, like 1 million things. but a lot of our divides are kind of about almost nothing. they're about a few words on social media, and it's hard to

see anything that compares to slavery, which is what the civil war was about. >> and that, i think, is a well taken point. but when you look at january 6th, what it is about, it is the bad one. >> political violence is very possible because we saw it on january 6th. we've seen a lot of it in american history, and it's very possible we would see something less than a -- >> i guess i wonder, when you look at the sort of lessons and the conversations that you outlined in this book, how do you extrapolate that to what cain in should have been today? >> well, lincoln was somebody -- lincoln thought about the interest of the person that he was talking to, the person that he was dealing with, and try to appeal to those interests. he try to understand the other person and figure out an argument for why they should support him. support his point of view. that didn't always work. he was dealing with some very, very unpleasant people, or people with very unpleasant views. and he was trying desperately to build a majority against slavery, which was really hard, given the attitudes of the

overwhelmingly white electorate at the time. and one of his insights i think was not to throw away people who might be abused to him sometime. beast of all to everyone, but also insist on principles and maybe from time to time you'd find just enough people to ally with you to make a majority. the republican speaker of the house in the party of lincoln fell a few votes short today. >> he sure did. but i wonder, taking those notes to heart, how do you -- president biden? because he still very much wants to talk to the part of the republican party in congress that's not entranced with maga-ism to the extent that that wing exists. >> biden, i'm not going to judge whether he's doing well or badly, but he's clearly attentive to that lincoln style of politics. i want to deal with this person that i disagree with on nine issues, but there's a tenth way we can do business. >> and that conversation appears to be ongoing, no matter what happens in the house. biden is almost always ready for the second chance. >> it's what democracy is. and when you think about the definition of democracy, the person across the table who is

terrible beliefs, who's wrong about everything, still has power because they still have the vote. the only way that wouldn't be true is if you didn't have democracy. if we gotta have democracy, we have to do with people we dislike. >> steven inskeep, i listened to you all the time, my friend. it's great to have you here in the flesh. thank you for your time tonight, congratulations on the book. it is different we must, it's out today. that is our show for this evening, now it's time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, and we have adam closs for joining us tonight. he was in the courtroom when the judge told donald trump to consider it's a gag order. we're going to get a first person report of all of that one tonight, andrew weissmann's going to analyze it for us, you know professor timothy snyder is going to join us later, and of course we will consider this unusual day. we will figure out a way to talk about that too with