This conference is absolutely broken. It's outrageous, we have serious issues happening in our country. He wants to move with a resolution to empower Patrick McHenry as some sort of a short term speaker. I think that's the wrong thing to do. [00:00:16] >> Speaker 2: GOP congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene seemed upset following the closed door Republican conference meeting that she was part of today, where members of her party duked it out over what to do about the speakership role in the House. [00:00:32] Now Jim Jordan failed not one, but two votes that would make him speaker. And so he was entertaining a different idea, which is what Marjorie Greene was referring to there. But before we get to that, Jim Jordan's allies had been threatening [00:00:50] members of the Republican Party to demand that they support Jim Jordan. And some of their threats went a little too far, if you ask me, including one of the voicemail threats by a Jim Jordan ally that was sent to a wife of a Republican Congressperson. [00:01:08] Now we don't know which Republican Congressperson's wife this was sent to, but nonetheless, here's what it sounded like. >> Speaker 3: Why is your husband such a pig? Why would he get on TV, make [BLEEP] of himself? Cuz he's a deep state prick? [00:01:23] Because he doesn't represent the people? So what we're gonna do is we're gonna [BLEEP] come follow you all over the place. We're gonna be up your ass nonstop. We are now Antifa. [00:01:39] We're gonna do what the left does, cuz your [BLEEP] husband gets on TV, the bad guys, they did so, I'm gonna vote for Kevin McCarthy, a piece [BLEEP], who everybody knows and for his piece of [BLEEP]. [00:01:54] Talk about Americans who are actually fighting for Americans, as the bad people says everything about him. So you husband, and we're not like the left, we aren't violent, but we're gonna follow your ass, [00:02:10] every appointment you have, everything you [BLEEP] do. You will not be left alone because your [INAUDIBLE] husband, Jim Jordan, or more conservative or you're gonna be molested like you can't ever imagine. [00:02:27] And again, nonviolently, you won't go to the beauty parlor. You must be a bitch to marry a ugly mother [INAUDIBLE] like that. >> Speaker 2: It appears that didn't work. Jim Jordan actually lost votes the second time around. [00:02:43] And that is what led him to, briefly, temporarily support the idea of having the current temporary speaker, Patrick McHenry, serve through the end of this legislative term. But after having that closed door meeting, he changed his mind. [00:03:00] I'll give you the details on that in just a moment. But, Cenk, you heard the gentleman. He's just gonna go after this woman, a wife of a sitting US Congressperson, and she's gonna be molested, nonviolently, though, nonviolently. >> Speaker 4: Is that a thing? >> Speaker 2: Jesus. [00:03:16] >> Speaker 4: Yeah, so look, keeping it real, chickens coming home to roost. So the right wing has sent these thugs and vigilantes against the left wing over and over and over for the last what? [00:03:31] Certainly since Trump's been around, and homes have been swatted, threats made nonstop to people that are on the left in politics and more so in media. And now they're doing it to fellow Republicans. [00:03:49] Did you think they were gonna stop? And so that's what brown shirts do. So now these Republicans are all of a sudden catching feelings and they're crying about it. And look, I have great sympathy for that wife, and I have great sympathy for anyone who's attacked. The same time, you guys didn't have any sympathy for [00:04:06] us when they did this to us for about a decade straight. And so now, all of a sudden, Republicans find out, it turns out there's violence, threats of violence around here. Yeah, yeah, thanks for noticing. I know, with conservatives it's always only when it affects you, [00:04:22] only when it affects you. Well, here are the chickens. >> Speaker 2: Now, this morning it appeared that there was a solution in sight because remember, without a House Speaker and without empowering Patrick McHenry to serve as House Speaker temporarily throughout the end of [00:04:39] the legislative term, they're unable to conduct official business. They can't pass legislation. You have Joe Biden attempting to pass a $100 billion aid package to Israel and Ukraine. Obviously, I have some issues with that, which we talked about in previous stories. [00:04:57] But regardless of how you feel about it, I mean, it's not even something that can be debated on the House floor until they have a speaker. And as it stands today, they don't have a speaker. And the idea of empowering Patrick McHenry to carry out that official business [00:05:13] has now just kind of devolved and won't happen. Because during that fiery closed door meeting with the GOP conference, a bunch of, I guess, Jim Jordan supporters voiced that they will in no way vote in favor of empowering Patrick McHenry for that role. [00:05:29] >> Speaker 4: Yeah, so Patrick McHenry doesn't exactly want it either. >> Speaker 2: Right. >> Speaker 4: But guys, this is a really interesting part of the story. So as soon as they said Patrick McHenry, a couple of the right wingers immediately said, no, no way, cuz they don't think he's radical enough. [00:05:44] But I actually weirdly give them credit for that. Why? Because bunch of Republicans jumped up, and here's the super interesting part. A bunch of Democrats jumped up and said, yeah, McHenry, McHenry. Why? Because he's more moderate? No, cuz he's more corrupt. [00:06:00] So he's head of the Financial Services Committee, and he gets the most amount of money from the banks, and then he doles it out to the other Republicans. But a lot of the corporate Democrats are involved in that same kinda corruption. So when they see McHenry, they're like, that's a guy we can do business with. [00:06:18] >> Speaker 2: Remember, the idea to empower McHenry originally came from the Democrats. And then this morning, when Jim Jordan said that he would support this idea, remember, this is prior to that closed door meeting with the GOP conference, [00:06:34] all of a sudden Nancy Pelosi was kinda pretending the Democrats might not be in favor of it. >> Speaker 4: No, they love guys like McHenry. They go make bipartisan deals with guys like that all day long. Next thing you know, was there another giant tax cut for banks? [00:06:51] [LAUGH] However did that happen? Good, bipartisan agreement. No, no, the McHenry's old school corrupt. And by the way, that's partly why he doesn't want the job. He's like, what are you guys doing, man? I'm making crazy bank over here, doing the actual work in Congress, [00:07:06] which is us funneling money to the bankers and them giving us donations back. [SOUND] If you put me in the spotlight, everybody's gonna know what we're up to. And that's why the Democratic leadership loves McHenry. That's the corruption they signed up for. [00:07:21] >> Speaker 2: So I wanna give you some quotes and some sound featuring Republicans who are against the idea of having McHenry serve in this role. First, we have Florida Republican Kat Cammack, who says the following, it certainly does not have the support in conference, [00:07:38] and to bring it to the floor, it would have to survive with Democratic votes. We're currently sitting on a tinder box, so to do that, it would set off the fuse that would certainly end in civil war within the GOP, and I don't believe that anybody wants to do that. [00:07:56] By the way, the civil war is currently happening. >> Speaker 5: Yeah, what do you mean? >> Speaker 2: It's super embarrassing for your party right now. >> Speaker 4: But yeah, I was just gonna say the same thing. What do you mean, set off the civil war? I thought we were in the middle of it. What part of this doesn't look like a war to you? What else would you do if you set that off? [00:08:12] No, honestly, there's nothing you could do. They would just go back to the old bipartisan, corrupt ways, and they just funnel more money to their donors. >> Speaker 2: Now even before that closed door meeting, Representative Chip Roy, a staunch supporter of Jim Jordan, expressed his disdain for the idea. [00:08:29] Let's watch. >> Speaker 5: I do not favor moving to the floor on that procedure. Never in the history of this institution, never, to the best of my knowledge, have we ever appointed a speaker pro tem with the full powers of the speakership without having elected a duly elected speaker. [00:08:44] We have not done that, to the best of my knowledge. To do that would be playing games with such an important position as third in line to the presidency. We should do our job and select a speaker, the Constitution says that. >> Speaker 2: So as a result, Republican Congressman Byron Donalds says, [00:09:02] the resolution to empower McHenry is dead. And now I'm not really sure what they're gonna do. They might hold another vote for Jim Jordan. >> Speaker 2: [LAUGH] What's the point? It's not gonna work. Members of Congress who were threatened are so [00:09:18] angry about the threats that some of them, by the way, initially voted for him in the first vote and now are like, no, I'm done. I'm not playing this game, and they're not gonna support him anymore. >> Speaker 4: Yeah, he keeps losing votes in every new vote, so [00:09:33] I don't see how he's gonna bring that 20 back. He's gotta get 16 out of the 20 to vote for him when more are slipping away as we speak. But then, look, Chip Roy is a radical right winger who I don't agree with on [00:09:48] anything, but he's not wrong about what he said there. The speaker of the House is a super important role, is third in line of succession to the President, right? So we can't be playing around with these games, pick a speaker, let's go. Democrats, look, that's the thing. If Democratic leadership was honest, [00:10:05] this is a perfect moment to go find an actual moderate that is not corrupt. I mean, to the best of your ability. >> Speaker 2: I mean, they're all corrupt, but at least someone who has some interest in passing legislation and engaging in concessions, yeah. >> Speaker 4: And someone who isn't the poster child for [00:10:20] corruption like McHenry is, right? >> Right. >> Speaker 4: And then get something in return. And I don't mean pork for your districts, and I don't mean more power for Democratic Congresspeople, that's totally irrelevant to our lives. No, I mean actual legislation. [00:10:36] Give me a vote on paid family leave. Give me a vote on the public option. Give me a vote on something that the American people really, really want and is very popular. But is Democratic leadership gonna do that? There's almost no chance cuz they don't give a damn about those bills. Those bills help you. [00:10:52] They don't care about them at all. They just care about their own personal power. So at the end of the day, I bet you the Democrats give away the House to someone like McHenry. If it isn't him, it'll be someone else, and they'll get nothing in return for you guys. They'll just get a little bit more power for themselves and [00:11:07] more money funneled to their collective donors.