GOP divide leaves House without speaker for 3rd day as McCarthy again falls short

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• Amna Nawaz:

  Welcome to the "NewsHour."

  It's another historic night on Capitol Hill.

• Geoff Bennett:

  After three days and hundreds of votes cast, the House has still not elected a speaker. There is no sign that Kevin McCarthy has broken his GOP opposition, leaving the Republican Party divided and Congress paralyzed.

  Lisa Desjardins has the latest on where things stand.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  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.

  Where do things stand right now, Congressman? What do you think?

• Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC):

  We will see. We're still talking.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Today, one thing new. Next to McCarthy as he walked out was opponent Paul Gosar.

• Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA):

  Everybody builds trust. Oh, watch out. Watch out.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  A flurry of closed-door meetings with holdouts showed promise last night, but then, today, key opponent Scott Perry tweeted that confidences were betrayed by a leak and it is now even more difficult to trust McCarthy.

  On the House floor:

• Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL):

  I advance the name of Kevin McCarthy very proudly as the next speaker of the House.

  John James (R), Michigan Congressman-Elect: I rise to nominate Kevin McCarthy speaker of the House.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Almost no change. McCarthy gained no votes, though his allies pitched a plea for unity.

• John James:

  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 doesn't embarrass them. And we are failing on both missions. That must change today.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  There was something different. Florida's Matt Gaetz added a new name for speaker.

• Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL):

  Donald John Trump.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  The former president received just that one vote.

  But that was more than McCarthy gained, as a small, fervent Republican rebellion gave no ground.

• Rep. Bob Good (R-VA):

  I will never vote for Kevin McCarthy.

• Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO):

  I am a no on Kevin.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  The stalemate is rare, but not unprecedented. In the lead-up to the Civil War, the House twice had so much trouble choosing a speaker, it lowered the threshold to a mere plurality, not a majority. The most recent speaker stalemate was in 1923, when it took nine ballots.

• Matt Glassman, Georgetown University:

  Our situation is most analogous to 1923, when you really just have two parties, and it's a dispute within one party.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Georgetown University's Matthew Glassman, a congressional rules expert, bristles vs. at the suggestion that a yet-to-be-formed Congress represents a constitutional crisis.

• Matt Glassman:

  And if they need to work through it for days or weeks, that may not be the greatest policy outcomes, but it's certainly reasonable for us as a republic.

  The way out of this is a political way. Maybe it's McCarthy. Maybe someone else. I would not expect McCarthy to get through early next week and still have all 200 of his votes voting for him multiple times a day.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Meanwhile, House Democrats have shown a united front in the midst of the Republican division, but they raise a concern about what this all means.

• Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA):

  We cannot organize our district offices, get our new members doing that critical work of our constituent services, helping serve the people who sent us here on their behalf.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  The House divided still has not managed to stand behind one speaker.

  And, right now, the 10th ballot for speaker again shows Kevin McCarthy coming up short and no speaker elected.

  Geoff, that means, of course, that now this Congress has surpassed that Congress or 1923, now with 10 votes vs. their nine, in how long it is taking to try and elect a speaker.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Well, Lisa, Kevin McCarthy's allies hoped that these negotiations would yield some meaningful results, some progress with his detractors, but that's not reflected on the House floor, at least not yet.

  Bring us up to speed on what's happening.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  I just jogged up the stairs from the closed-door meeting happening to try and figure this all out.

  Think of it this way. This is a tale of two sessions, first, session number one, what's going on behind closed doors. And I can report at this moment that's actually seeming to look better and better for Kevin McCarthy. I spoke to one of his closest allies coming up the stairs. He said he's as optimistic as he ever been.

  They are putting pen to paper to lay out a series of rules changes that they think will bring on board maybe six, maybe even a dozen of the holdouts. And some of those holdouts are meeting with them and indicate, yes, they want to get there. So that's this situation behind closed doors.

  The other session, however, is the session that we're watching on the House floor. And the basic math tells you that they need far more than those holdouts that they think they can get with this potential deal tonight. And it's not clear that they can get them.

  I think, in fact, there are more never-Kevins than there were before. The Congress is terrible at math. And I think we still don't quite see the endgame here. But one other thing I want to raise, there are some outside factors at play here as well.

  Groups like, for example, the Club for Growth, which is a conservative fiscal group, they made a deal last night with a conservative PAC associated with Kevin McCarthy. Let me show you their press release that came out about. This is something that is highly unusual, but we have a key agreement in support of Kevin McCarthy.

  They helped get elected some of the members of this House, the more conservative members. That deal is that that McCarthy-aligned super PAC would stay out of some House Republican races. Basically, that would help the more conservative groups.

  And one other thing I'm hearing from some of these conservative McCarthy allies, Geoff, that's interesting, they say they are getting calls from their constituents that tell them that they don't want Kevin McCarthy. They're getting pressure the other way from their grassroots.

• Geoff Bennett:

  That's interesting.

  As this stalemate persists, as we heard Katherine Clark say in your report, the work of the Congress is on hold, at least in the Lower Chamber. Members can't be sworn in. They can't do the work of the American people.

  What options are left for the House moving forward right now?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  There are very few.

  One is this idea that somehow Kevin McCarthy flips enough votes. The other is the idea that maybe he makes a deal with Democrats and gives them some better committee assignments. That's not going to work for the Republican base. Another idea, switch to plurality. Some of our viewers pointed out, I got that wrong last night. It has been done in the past.

  But that isn't politically very feasible. So, really, it's either flip those votes, get Kevin McCarthy elected, or he's got a drop out. And he probably needs to make that happen in the next couple of days, one or the other.

• Geoff Bennett:

  All right, Lisa Desjardins covering it all for us.

  Lisa, thank you.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  You're welcome.