and that's the topic of our weekend briefing with congressional correspondent lisa desjardin. sa, we know that nothing happens on the hill. no one moves no one coughwithout you hearing it, knowing about it. so w's the current state of play? >> john. we are less than two days away from the new congress, convening and getting ready to elect a new speaker and kevin mccarthy. the man who republicans have chosen as their nominee for house speaker does not have the votes he needs to win. you need right now a majority of the house to guarantee the speakership, so 218 votes. kevin mccarthy will walk in with a total of 222 republicans, and he does not have 218 of them supporting him. yet he does have a majority, though, and allies of his like daryl isa of california are spending time like they did this morning, saying that they think he will get there. here's what mr isa had to say he has a team in place. it is ready to go. and quite frankly, there's an inevitability that he will be the speaker. so now it's time for those few holdouts to decide. what is it that they really want? say it

as lisa desjardins reports, mccarthy is hopeful he will soon be able to convince some of those holdoutsck his bid for speaker. lisa: after four days of counting votes... >> the house will be in order. lisa: dealmaking on the floor... and behind closed doors... there is still no speaker of the house. but there was some big momentum for kevin mccarthy. rep. mccarthy: we're going to make progress. we're going to shock you. lisa: a total of 15 mbers who previously voted againstim changed their votes. >> kevin mccarthy. [applause] lisa: but he still didn't receive enough support to take the gavel. the changed votes came after mccarthy agreed to back some of his opponents' demands that would weaken the power of the speakership. >> for too long minority rights have been stepped over. too few people are making too many decisions for the american people in ways that undermine the health and wellbeing of the this institution, the country and american people. that has a chance to change today. lisa: mccarthy himself says the battle could be resolved as early as tonight. >> you so we made some good

to his right is lisa desjardins. lisa is a correspondent for "the pbs newshour," and we are so thrilled to have with us. she covers the u.s. capitol and she travels across the country to report how decisions in washington affect people around the country. she come for reporting on the before and after, the events of the january 6 insurrection she received a peabody award as well as several other significant awards. and then finally on the far right is david rapallo. dave joined the faculty of georgetown law center after spending two decades in high-level positions in congress, and the white house. he was staff director of house oversight and reform committee. he also served as, in the obama white house as senior director and counsel on legislative oversight for the national security council, and dave is a 2022 recipient of the carl levin center award for excellence in oversight research. so that is our panel. so to kick things off, i'm pretty sitdown as as a get into, because i can't stand for 90 minutes, suppose i c

congressional correspondent lisa desjardins joins us with the latest. it is great to see you. lisa: good to see you. geoff: and for the unfamiliar, remind us what this means that the country has hit its debt limit, its debt ceiling. lisa: to use a cliche analogy, we have reached our credit card limit. however, unlike most of us, the treasury has far more sweeping powers to deal with hitting its credit card limits. so they are using accounting mechanisms. they call them extraordinary measures -- i'm starting to call them extra-ordinary, because they have to use them so often now -- in order to keep us paying our bills. how long will that last? well, the estimates are until summer. but i want to pay attention to a note that secretary yellen wrote in her letter today about what she thinks is ahead. she wrote -- quote -- as you can see right there -- that the period of time that extraordinary measures may last is subject to considerable uncertainty. that means, essentially, no one really knows how long we can keep treading water. geoff: so, the timing ahead is uncertain. treasury i

congressional correspondent lisa desjardins joins us with the latest. it is great to see you. r the unfamiliar, remind us what this means if the country has hit its debt limit. lisa: to use a cliche analogy, we have reached our credit card limit. however, unlike most of us, the treasury has more powers to deal with hitting the credit card limit, so they are dealing with accounting mechanisms. i am calling them extra ordinary because they have to use them so often in order to keep us paying our bills. how long will that last? estimates are till summer. i want to draw attention to a note janet yellen wrote today. she wrote, " the period of time that external measures may last is subject to considerable uncertainty." that means no one really knows how long we can keep treading water. geoff: the timing ahead is uncertainty. the treasury is trying to buy time. in 2011, this brings midship resulted in the u.s. having its credit rating downgraded for the first time in history, and retirement savings took a hit. what is the risk this time? lisa: it is a significant risk. a quick remind

lisa desjardins has more on the increasingly dangerous environment for journalists worldwide. the past five years, 289 journalists have been killed worldwide, many in retaliation for the work they were doing. last year, 67 journalists were killed, the highest number in a single year since 2018. more than half of those deaths happened in just three countries. in ukraine, 15 died covering russia's brutal war there. mexico and haiti saw the sharpest rise in killings. 30 journalists were killed in latin america alone. nearly half of all journalists killed last year. joining us now to talk about this is jody ginsberg, president at the committee to protect journalists. jody, the first question is why? why do you think we're seeing this increase in journalists death and killings? jody: there is a couple of reasons. as you mentioned, the highest number of killings was in ukraine, as you would expect, any kind of international conflict. but increasingly we're seeing journalists killed outside of war zones. as you said, maybe half the deaths that we documented last year were in the lati

following it all is our capitol hill correspondent, lisa desjardins.te house correspondent, laura barron-lopez. let's jump right in. the start of the new congress is less than 24 hours away. kevin mccarthy does not have the votes to become house speaker. why not? who is standing in his way? lisa: let's start with good math. two absolutely -- has republicans come into the session of congress with 222 members. but to clinch the speakership, you need a majority of a house that is 218, that is easy enough. kevin mccarthy can spare all of his republicans except for four. not yet on board with mr. mccarthy, 14 or more members of his own party say that they are not there yet. some of these groups say they are a hard now. there are others who came out with a letter, after mr. mccarthy proposed a sweeping amount of changes that they said they wanted, they said they are not there yet. here is an excerpt from that letter. they say they -- there continue to be missing commitments with respect to virtually every component of our entreaties. what does that mean? the

lisa desjardins is here to break down what's happening now and what's to come. o see you. lisa: good to see you. amna: so, take us through some of these first actions we're seeing in congress, especially the moves around the committees. what's happened and why does it matter? lisa: well, the first weeks, what happens now really sets the tone, any possible action, and also all of the leadership decisions are being made right now. so it's critical. and i'm going to start with what's going on with committees, because those are the driving force, sort of the blood that pumps congress. and, already, we have seen from new speaker kevin mccarthy some big decisions. he has kept up his pledge to remove two democrats from the intelligence committee, so already sort of a tone of partisanship, kind of combat and divide. mccarthy says the reasons he's removed adam schiff, the former chairman, is because he claims schiff lied about intelligence that centers around former president trump. schiff says that was the impeachment effort, that he wasn't lying. that was what he knew.

republicans have blocked congressman kevin mccarthy from taking the gavel, and there's no end in sight lisa desjardins begins our coverage of the continued battle between party leaders and the chamber's hard-liners. lisa: not quite chaos, but, for republican leaders and for the house in general, certainly a frenzy of questions without answers. rep. jordan: we will see what -- we will see what happens. lisa: as kevin mccarthy continued to insist he would prevail as speaker of the house, despite being well sort of votes. rep. mccarthy: it doesn't matter. i still have the most votes. so, we could go through every name in the conference and be at the end of the day, and we will be able to get there. lisa: meanwhile, in the chamber, an opening prayer for the times. margaret: holy god, in these days of uncertainty and change, we turn to you, who are the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. lisa: and not good for mccarthy, groundhog day, with the words of yesterday. rep. stefanik: i rise today to nominate the gentleman from california, kevin mccarthy. p. jordan: i rise to nominate kevin mccarthy for speaker

joining me to discuss this and more, nia-malika henderson, and in the studio, lisa desjardins, weijia jiang, and jonathan lemire. we are happy you are up because you are often up way too early. jonathan: i am heavily caffeinated. yamiche: yes. president biden broke his silence after days of not wanting to answer questions about the classified documents. what led to that and how much pressure is he feeling? lisa: i think the white house from the -- weijia: i think the white house from the beginning has had a carefully crafted strategy, not only for the documents but how to communicate that to the people. our team broke the story and the big question after that was why didn't you disclose it yourself if you knew about these in november, if you knew about more documents found in december at his wilmington house? i think that's what they are struggling with more, because this president pledged transparency. the is transparency when it comes to the white house cooperating with the department of justice, but transparency with the american public is very different and i think that's where th

lead tmore gridlock to walk us through all this, i'm joined by our congressional correspondent, lisa desjardinsblicans have a speaker. but the house can't really get down to work until the chamber passes the set of operating rules. the all-important question these days appears to be, do they have the votes? lisa: this is the first big test of this republican you house. i will say that going into today, we do have the freedom caucus folks who negotiated this, they like the bat, they like how it changes the house. but there's a question that comes from moderates who are upset they didn't have a seat at the table. here is republican nancy mays of south carolina, speaking yesterday. >> are represent a purple district. i have to represent republicans, democrats and independents. i want to know that the positions that i have are going to have a voice that it will have weight in the conference. there are a lot of members like me that have issues with some of the policies that we're going to be working on. lisa: it's our understanding that she will vote against tonight. that is a big yes vote and relie

lisa desjardins has the latest on where things stand. : outside the usual speaker's office, a watch and wait, as a line of journalists and pressure both grow around republican kevin mccarthy and his allies. quick sort of things stand right now, what do you think? >> we will see. lisa: today, one thing new, next to mccarthy as he walked out was opponent paul gosar. a flurry of closed-door meetings with hold-outs showed promise last night, but then today, key opponent stt perry tweeted that confidences were betrayed by a leak and it is now even more difficult to trust mccarthy. on the house floor -- >> i rise to nominate kevin mccarthy for speaker of the house. lisa: almost no change, mccarthy gained no votes. though his allies pitched a plea for unity. >> the american people have told us, by putting a republican majority here, that they want republicans to lead and they want a government that works and that doesn't embarrass them. and we are failing on both missions. that must change today. lisa: there was something different, florida's ma

lisa desjardins has the story. are fired lovie smith last week after a three win and 13 loss season that many saw as a rebuilding year leaving just two full-time black head coaches out of the 32 spots in the nfl. this in a league where nearly 60% of the players are black. that gap has been an issue for decades. in 2003 the nfl adopted the rooney rule to ensure teams interviewed at least one minority candidate for every open head coach job. here is what that recently fired coach, lovie smith told the washington post last summer. >> there is pressure to win. you knew it was bigger than that. if you did not win, you would stop progress. not because back a little bit. and that is pressure that i still feel. we get a shorter period of time to prove who we are. reporter: the washington post has chronicled the problem in detail in a series called blackout. michael, my first question is why is this only a continued problem ? >> it is getting worse. lovie smith was fired after one season and the guy that came after was give

lisa desjardins joins us with more to expect tomorrow and down the road.cans have mentioned a number of topics they say are ripe for investigation. help us understand where the intent to start and where this heads. lisa: when you think about the investigations house republicans are launching, i think about them in three big baskets. let's look at the committees that will be key. first, a new select committee on china. important to note, this has wide bipartisan backing, it is focused on china and the communist party there, the economy and also human rights. different are the other two committees you see here, the house oversight committee. these committees are looking at the biden administration -- look at the list. these are the different things already announced by the house oversight committee, the classified documents, the biden family influence, including hunter biden, and also joe biden's brothers, whether they have connections outside this country. the pandemic, border, rug prices and overall afghanistan and the withdrawal there. expect a lot of new