McCarthy still short of votes to become speaker, but emerging deal chips away at holdouts

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• AMNA NAWAZ:

  Welcome to the "NewsHour."

  After four days and 13 rounds of voting, the House made some progress today, but has still failed to elect a speaker.

• Geoff Bennett:

  While more than a dozen Republicans switched their votes to support Congressman Kevin McCarthy today, a handful of hard right members refuse to back down.

  As Lisa Desjardins reports, McCarthy is hopeful he will soon be able to convince some of those holdouts to back his bid for speaker.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  After four days of counting votes…

• Clerk:

  The House will be in order.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  … dealmaking on the floor and behind closed doors, there is still no speaker of the House.

  But there was some big mo', momentum for Kevin McCarthy.

• Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA):

  We're going to make progress. We're going to shock you.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  A total of 15 members who previously voted against him changed their votes.

  (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

• Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC):

  Kevin McCarthy.

• Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL):

  McCarthy.

• Speaker:

  McCarthy.

• Rep. Chip Roy:

  Kevin McCarthy.

  (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

• Lisa Desjardins:

  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.

• Rep. Chip Roy:

  But, 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 well-being of this institution, the country and the American people. That has a chance to change today.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  McCarthy himself says the battle could be resolved as early as tonight.

• Rep. Kevin McCarthy:

  I think you saw we made some very good progress. We will come back tonight. And I believe, at that time, we will have the votes to finish this once and for all.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Some Republicans frustrated by the now handful still blocking him walked off the floor as Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz railed against McCarthy.

• Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL):

  Mr. McCarthy doesn't have the votes today. He will not have the votes tomorrow. And he will not have the votes next week, next month, next year.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  That's the question. Will the remaining hard-liners keep that up, or will enough of them reverse themselves?

  Meantime, without a speaker, congressional business has been halted on several fronts. Members are still not sworn in, so some constituent services are left on pause. They also cannot receive national security briefings.

• Brad Fitch, President, Congressional Management Foundation:

  This is obviously a once-in-100-year earthquake for the House of Representatives from a political perspective.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Brad Fitch is the president of the nonprofit Congressional Management Foundation. He says the House can't fully function until there's a speaker.

• Brad Fitch:

  The Congress needs to functioning political parties. America does not have a parliamentary one-party system. The founders gave us a system that requires both parties to be functioning. So a dysfunctional Republican Party isn't just bad for the Republican Party. It's bad for the Democrats. It's bad for America. And it's bad for the Congress.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  House Democrats continue to remain a united front, admonishing Republicans for the stalemate.

• Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX):

  These four days have tested House Republicans' ability to govern, and they have failed.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  And the House took a few hours' break, but they are coming back late tonight — Geoff.

• Geoff Bennett:

  So, what's expected to happen at 10:00 p.m. Eastern, when the House reconvenes, Lisa?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  All right, 10:00 p.m. Eastern, 7:00 p.m. on the West Coast. Everybody, get your popcorn, because my reporting is that, tonight, the expectations are the Republicans will select a speaker and it will be Kevin McCarthy.

  Not only that, Geoff, but the plan right now — of course, everything can change. It's strange times. The plan right now is to elect the speaker, swear in all the rest of the members of the House and pass the rules, the rules package, before they go home for the weekend.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Well, let's talk more about that rules package, because McCarthy started turning the tides in his favor after he agreed to those concessions to — with his Republican detractors.

  Tell us more about the ones that would limit the authority of the House speaker.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Let's take a look at this. This is very interesting stuff that we will be talking about perhaps for the next two years.

  First, at the top of that list, Mr. McCarthy has agreed to allow any single member of the Republican Conference to call a motion to vacate, a motion to challenge his own speakership. That is something that's existed before, but in the last few speakerships did not.

  And, in addition to that, he has also agreed to allow more Freedom Caucus members on key committees like the Rules Committee. Those are — the opposition to his speakership largely came from the Freedom Caucus. Finally, he has agreed to bring more votes to the floor. That's something that I think McCarthy has said in the past that he wants an open process, more amendments, more chances for House members to put something out there that may win or may lose.

  But that is a strain on any speakership's power, because, essentially, one of the speaker's real authorities is to determine what has the muster to pass in the House. Here he is saying, I will let many more ideas reign, but that does diminish the role of the speaker.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And tell us also about these rules changes that would change the way the House handles spending.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  You know I'm a spending nerd. So this stuff is really important.

  But it will matter a great deal to how our government operates and what it does. First, at the top of the list, as I said, Mr. McCarthy has agreed to allow open amendments. Any amendment to a spending bill can be on the floor. That means we will have some very long spending debates in the House.

  The debt ceiling increase, which we know need to happen sometime this spring, must be accompanied by some kind of budget reforms. There are no further details on what that means yet. In addition, they are requiring that the House pass spending caps with a budget. Now, it's interesting. That could include caps that could affect defense spending. That's going to be a debate for Republicans.

  And, finally, no omnibus or giant appropriations bills. Geoff, I think what we're going to see here is a very rigorous House floor. But once they try and get together with the Democratic-led Senate on some of these spending ideas in the fall, we're going to have some real issues.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Lisa Desjardins, you and our politics team working around the clock this week, thanks so much.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  You're welcome.