Ill have the Conference Pick somebody else. America wakes up without a Speaker Of The House. And plenty of questions about who could ultimately replace him. Good day to our viewers in the United States and around the world. Im kasie hunt. It is wednesday, october 4. 5 00 a. M. Here in washington with congress in utter chaos this morning after the dramatic removal of Kevin Mccarthy as Speaker Of The House. Right now there is no clear replacement. No House Business is scheduled until at least tuesday. It is the first time in history that speaker has been ousted in the middle of a congressional term. An overwhelming majority ofs did actually vote to keep mccarthy in power, but it was still not enough to block the efforts of the republican hardliners who Wanted Mccarthy gone. On this vote, the yeas are 216. The nays are 210. 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. Wow. Because of the republicans razor thin majority, mccarthy needed almost all of his partys support to keep the gavel. He could only lose a handful of votes an eight was too many. That is the number of republicans who joined with democrats to remove him. My fear is that Great Institution fell today. Because you cant do the job if eight people you have 94 of or 96 of your entire conference, but eight people can partner with the whole other side. How do you govern. And for them to make a motion on me because i made a decision for the country, that they agreed with, but they choose to do the other. That becomes a problem. So floridas matt gaetz who brought the vote to oust mccarthy blew up his partys speakership. Perhaps you might think that he has a replacement plan. Who are you going to get behind as a candidate . I dont know who the candidates are. So no plan. House majority leader Steve Scalise appears to be emerging as the early frontrunner. This makes sense. We dont know yet if he has enough support to succeed. Lets bring in our panel this morning. Many these folks have been up through the evening. Former gop senior Congressional Aid and principal and founder of re rile strategies, and of course cohost of a podcast and former gop congressional nominee and ava mckend who is cnns National Politics correspondent. Thank you for being with us here. Ava, you are a politics reporter but having you here outside of the capitol, which we cant see the dome in the shot, but that is where we are, makes perfect sense because this story is all the same story. The story of donald trump, the story of these Hard Line Rogue Type of congressional candidates who come here, create chaos, in many ways this house was leading indicator of how all of this kind of unfolded and went down. We did hear from Speaker Mccarthy last night in what honestly felt like a swan song. He was standing up there sort of like hey, this is the last chance i got with all these cameras pointed at me to say what i wanted. What stood out to you . Most consequentially, he said that he had not run again. This is a man who wanted this speakership it seems like his whole political career and he said hes done. He also took aim at his enemies and surprisingly democrats as well, that was sort of a bit of a confusing moment because it is not as if he asked democrats to bail him out. But he suggested in his comments that he was expecting as much. He also said that he was grateful for the job, very short speakership, 2269 days but calld it a great honor. And he said he had no regrets. Lets listen. I dont regret standing up for choosing governing over grievance. It is my responsibility, it is my i do job. I do not regret negotiating. Our government is designed to find compromise. I dont regret my efforts to build coalitions and find solutions. I was raised to solve problems, not create them. So i may have lost the vote today, but as i walk out of this chamber, i feel fortunate to have served the American People. Big question now, who is going to replace Speaker Mccarthy. Congressman scalise seems to have the confidence of some of the right flank, but this could be a very painful process. We saw how painful it was to elect the speaker in the first place. And we also see congressman jim jordan who chairs the house judiciary committee, he has been able to straddle good relationships with leadership as well as the Maga Movement in the party. And if not him, presumably congressman tom emmer of minnesota, he led the arm of the party responsible for electing House Republicans. So one could guess that he has relationships with republicans across the country. And so now well see who will take up the mantle. And i should point out emmer did not support scalise. And you know Kevin Mccarthy well. He helped support you in your bid for congress. Which of course you actually lost in the republican primary due in no small part to some of the factors that were seeing play out here and part of why Kevin Mccarthy wanted you here was because he wants people as he said who can go govern. Eight members of his conference who said we dont want to do that. Im still struck by the moment. Ive cover this had place for over a decade now. I never imagined had we would wake up without a speaker because their own party threw him out and had no plan to replace him. Talk about what Kevin Mccarthy is like, what he was dealing with here and your takeaways for what comes next. First thing is that this was all laid in Motion November of last year. When Election Night happened, it wasnt the big red wave, only 222 republican majority, that is when this became a very, very difficult job. And look, in no small part because of the types of candidates in these primaries. Kevin mccarthy wanted a a majority of at least ten seats, 12 seats more than what he got. You have a lot of folks who didnt succeed because whether it was roe v. Wade, whether donald trump announcing his president ial campaign essentially right before the general election last year, so you actually had a number of republicans in swing seats lose. You also had a lot of really lousy candidates. Some who had no business of being nominee. You had joe kent out of washington state, had the incumbent member of congress who is a pragmatic conservative member won that primary, she would be in congress and a nay vote. So that all played Out November Of Last year. It is pretty remarkable. I mean, i remember talking to people on Election Night in the last round of midterm elections counting what the speakers majority was going to be, and having conversations with people about the possibility of Something Like this happening. Those conversations happened again when it took 15 votes to get the speakers gavel in the first place. Youve worked inside this building and you understand what it is like to be somebody who is dealing with these kinds of things. The other speakers that came before, other republican speakers before Kevin Mccarthy, they honestly got tired of it and basically up and quit because they couldnt handle this faction. Mccarthy was actually willing to stick it out, but at the end of the day couldnt overcome it. It sort of came to a head here. What did you see unfold here and what do you think happens next . I think that there are a great many of us who are still reeling of shock to the system this morning. But what happened last night, we never thought was possible. But we just trace the line back to a decade and a half ago when i was sitting here and seeing these populist forces that pushed out congressman eric cantor in virginia, that sent paul ryan into early retirement, these are the same forces that were at play to push out Kevin Mccarthy. People are drawing a stark contrast between matt gaetz and Kevin Mccarthy, but i submit to you it is not that great. Kevin mccarthys ambition has always been quite naked. And ive watched him come up and seen him want this job and he was going to stick to it. Because he does believe in good government. He does want people that come here and know how to pull the levers and have that desire. You can call these eight people who ousted him people who dont want him there because he is an Establishment Type but i think it is bigger than that. I also speak for the vast majority of americans in the Republican Party i think that are fris traited by the members we send here with our Taxpayer Dollars who have an he hedict t spend wisely. And we overspend. So what is happening here . I think were in a moment where were seeing the system burnt gown all the way to the ashes. And im actually not crying ove ashes. And im actually not crying over it. Maria, you are our democrat here and there was a lot of conversation yesterday morning about what democrats would do. And cnn reported that there were these last minute treaties people close to mccarthy saying please save us. I think the argument was a version of, well, better the devil you know. And you are not going forget anybody better. Democrats ultimately decided, they played a clip of mccarthy on face the nation, and they said no, we cant do this. Help us understand a little bit more about that decision and do you think there is any world in which democrats come to regret it . First of all, lets look at why the decision was the way that it was. And you are right, a lot of it was Kevin Mccarthy excoriating democrats not just over the weekend, but even in his speech last night. It was kind of jawdropping that he ends up blaming democrats. When it was democrats who came to save him frankly and the country in terms of keeping the government open on saturday, right . That was why we were able to keep the government open because democrats were the adult in the room working with Mccarthy Which and i will give credit to mccarthy for also being adult in the room on that. Exactly, he realized that the whole party was going to sink if he didnt keep the government open. So yes, i gave him credit too for finally realizing that he had to do what a real leader does, right . But he needed democrats to do it because he wasnt able to do that early on. And so is the person they get next going to be worse for democrats . Well see. Worse for democrats or worse for the country . What democrats looked at last night in terms of the decision that was before them is that they saw a Speaker Of The House that, first of all, had no conversations with them about what he wanted to do in terms of trying to help him get to where he needed to be to stay as coum was the bottom line. Back in may he came to an agreement with democrats and joe biden to raise the debt ceiling and keep the levels of Government Spending where they are in order to avoid exactly what weve just gone through. He could not be trusted back on that because of the maga members of his caucus that he could not control. Who of course didnt trust him either. Exactly. Additionally he went to the house floor and started an impeachment inquiry with absolutely zero evidence. He also a move he may regret this morning. Absolutely. After the election, after january 6, he excoriated donald trump and so then we were like okay, maybe this is a guy who understands and is reasonable and that democrats can work with. What does he do shortly after that . He goes down to maralago and kisses the ring. We knew that this guy was twofaced, that he would put his finger up to the political winds and he was not a leader who could be trusted. You have to have some kind of trust in order to govern. I will say, i was here on these grounds on january 6, and i spoke to Kevin Mccarthy in the aftermath of what he had to say on the floor and he said those same things in private conversations with other reporters and then he did change his tune pretty swiftly. Here we are today. All right. Thank you very much. Much more ahead. Coming up next, mccarthys own words tanking any hope Congressional Democrats would save him as we were just discussing. Plus the houses number two republican and who else might be a candidate for speaker. Were not voting in any way that would help save speak are mccarthy. Were following our leader and we are not saving kuala lumpur. Mccarthy. Were following our leader and we are not saving kuala lumpur. Kevin mccarthy needed democrats to keep his gavel. They said no chance. Welcome back to early start. Were live on capitol hill this morning. The Democratic Caucus met Tuesday Morning to try to get on the same page. This is what they played at the top of the meeting to set the tone in terms of deciding what they were going to do about Kevin Mccarthy. Watch. Wasnt sure it was going to pass. Because the democrats tried do everything they cannot to let it pass. Democrats were the ones who voted for this. Did you watch republicans voted did you watch the floor yesterday . Yes. Republicans voted against it. So lets wake through what actually happened. First of all, the democrats stood up and did dilatory actions asked to address journ. Was that supporting toed a skrourn . Then they used the magic minute. They went as far as pulling the fire alarm not to try to get the bill to come up. That interview of course conducted on sunday. Lets bring in Michigan Democratic congresswoman debbie dingell. Thank you so much for being here with us. Take us inside the meeting yesterday, what it was like when that clip was played and what the conversation was like among democrats about what do about mccarthy. Good morning, good to be with you. I just want to say one thing as we even begin this conversation. I dont think that there is glory in place. What happened yesterday was sad and historical. And it has consequences for our democracy and our country. So lets start there. But back to saturday and yesterday, where you had discussions that were thoughtful and reflective and real. When Kevin Mccarthy refers to saturday, lets put it in perspective. We got a bill that a 71 page bill that we were given 15 minutes to read. We asked for 90 minutes. When they wouldnt give it to us, we tried to get enough time so that people could at least read the bill and make sure there was nothing in it that would do undo harm. And our caucus on saturday was thoughtful. I think that there are some members that didnt love this bill but members of our caucus got up and said our job is to keep this Government Running. It got 99 of what we want. Our caucus unified saturday and said we are going to keep the Government Running over any of these other Little Things because that is the fundamental part of our job. Except for one person, we all voted for that bill. Yesterday it was a reflective day. People were really talking about how they feel, what he had said. What had been said about january 6, which i got to tell you is still in the hearts of many of the people in the gallery. And that is how we got for where we were. It was not an easy decision. I want people to understand that. It was tough real reflective. Can you take us behind into some of the conversations about january 6 in particular . Because this is a moment i know for those of us who were here and experienced what happened that day, what happened with Kevin Mccarthy, the 180 that occurred between when he went down to the floor on that day and said what everybody fully expected him to say at that time, to suggest that donald trump was responsible for this, and then to go down for maralago and take that photo, what role did that play in democrats decision . For a lot of members that was the deciding role. You need to remember that people came to capitol hill on january 6 to kill people. And it is those very people that were voting yesterday. There were some that were trapped in the gallery that are still suffering from ptsd. They were scared. And they are fighting for our democracy. They love our democracy. And they feel that Kevin Mccarthy has given into president trump. Even if he says the right thing, it wont be good. Im reflecting what was reflected in the caucus. We went through a lot of pain as we were going through the debt ceiling. We were supposed to hold to the debt ceiling but again there was drama. But others that were like are there things that we can do to postpone the vote. But they forced the vote. So even thoughtful things couldnt have been discussed by some that really wanted to. So by the time Decision Making came, we were where we were yesterday. Congresswoman, what do you think you will ultimately end up with here . Is it going to be better for the country and for democrats to have a Steve Scalise as speaker . It is as you noted a somber historic day here that we have a house of representatives with no Speaker Of The House. It does seem like republicans were making the argument behind the scenes saying that is really bad for the country. How can you argue and what do you think might be better about the future here in the wake of this decision . Frirs