“After GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy delayed a final vote on the Build Back Better bill with an eight-and-a-half-hour speech, House Democrats both gave McCarthy what he wanted and denied him of his actual win. Instead of voting on the $1.75 trillion bill in the dead of night and making McCarthy the focus of every final passage story, Democrats recessed until Friday morning, intending to come back and pass the bill then. Curiously, McCarthy stopped talking shortly after surpassing the eight hour, seven minute record set by Nancy Pelosi in 2018 – yielding after eight hours and 32 minutes. Starting at 8:38 p.m., McCarthy took full advantage of the ‘Magic Minute’ – in which leaders from both parties are allowed to speak for as long as they want with it only counting as one minute against the time allocated for debate – and delivered a stemwinder of half-truths, outright lies, aggrieved arguments, unrelated tangents, and recycled rhetoric.”

“In doing so, McCarthy raised the temperature in an already steaming House chamber, with Democrats repeatedly interjecting and needling the California Republican, and with McCarthy seeming to stretch his speech even longer as punishment. As McCarthy began his lecture on the floor Thursday, the Democratic heckling started almost immediately. McCarthy told members he had ‘all night,’ to which Democrats responded, ‘So do we!’ And both sides really did. When McCarthy baselessly claimed the bill would cost $5 trillion, Democrats started yelling out increasingly large numbers. ‘$6 trillion!’ one shouted, before another topped him with ‘$7 trillion!’ – with more Democrats joining in with even more farcical projections. When McCarthy said, ‘If I sound angry, I am,’ Democrats chimed in with a prolonged ‘awww’ sound, like they were watching a baby do something cute. And when McCarthy finally wrapped up, Democrats, who’d quieted down and eventually left as the speech dragged on for hours, ending at 5:10 a.m” – Daily Beast