January 7, 2023

For Four Days, C-SPAN Was the Greatest TV Channel in the World

A Renaissance paintingBill Clark/CQ Roll Call/AP

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12:29 a.m. ET: The House finally voted confirm Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. It’s been a wild ride.

As midnight approached on the fourth day of House speaker voting, things were buzzing on C-SPAN.

The freely accessible channel trained its briefly liberated cameras on Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as he appealed to holdout Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to take us out of our misery and vote for him. The dialogue is inaudible, but people shout as McCarthy walks down the aisle. McCarthy hears something that grabs his attention, and he turns around defiantly.

Things got physical:

Portrait of a defeated man:

Members began chanting “one more time” when it became clear that the majority had voted against a motion to adjourn. Buckle up for round 15 of voting:

Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) says what we’re all thinking:

Here’s a link to the most riveting television on air.

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Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

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