“Chaos” was the word of the day in the U.S. Capitol.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said it before the House voted on his measure to remove Rep. Kevin McCarthy as a speaker. He took the House floor before the historic vote on McCarthy’s fate, and declared, “Chaos is Speaker McCarthy.”
But this wasn’t the first time I heard the word “chaos”– or even felt it– today.
Some context: Tuesday was just the second day I’d reported on Capitol Hill after being credentialed only two weeks earlier as a Northwestern University graduate student reporting for Medill News Service and its media partners.
Around noon, I joined several other reporters waiting outside then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s office. The anticipation was palpable. Lines of tourists cut through the pack of reporters. “They chose a helluva day to visit the Capitol,” we whispered to each other.
It was almost 1 p.m. when Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Fla., emerged. Naturally, I, along with about 10 other reporters swarmed around him, where he said that Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Calif., was creating chaos because “there is no other candidate, there will not be another candidate” besides Rep. McCarthy.
I should’ve known that Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Fla., using the word was foreshadowing the energy ahead. After speaking with him, reporters again swarmed outside Kevin McCarthy’s office, spilling into the rotunda. Reporters planned who would do what when McCarthy emerged. One would record audio and another video. Senior reporters reminded newer reporters to remain calm and not push each other.
Surrounded by several other reporters, you could feel how eager we all were to see McCarthy come out. I had my camera open and ready on my phone, and I remember scoping out a plan for how I would walk beside him to get pictures as he crossed through the rotunda. I probably checked the clock on my phone at least a hundred times before he finally came out, smiling and saying, “I feel good.”
I ran beside where he walked through the rotunda, attempting to take a clear photo, hear an interesting quote and not run into anyone. I succeeded in all three, and as McCarthy made his way toward the House Chamber, I smiled to myself, thinking, who can I talk to next?
In the rotunda, the statues’ solemn faces seemed to watch us, their apparent calm juxtaposing the frantic energy emanating from the scrum of reporters gripping cameras and recorders.
I beelined toward Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., who said, “Everything’s always chaos,” right as I started to record.
I started heading toward the House Press Gallery with the intention of sitting down, live-posting on X and watching the vote livestreaming on a big TV outside the chamber. But a door to the upper level of the chamber swung open and instinctively I dropped my bag on the floor, gripped my phone and slid through the doorway into the press section overlooking the House Chamber.
You would think that the first thing to look at would be all the representatives on the floor below, but as I walked in, my eyes were immediately drawn to the wall behind me, which had the votes of each representative projected on it. Reporters were frantically typing who voted which way before the clock ran out and live-posting which Republicans voted against McCarthy.
There wasn’t even enough space for me to sit. I stood behind some reporters and had to squeeze against the wall whenever someone needed to pass through. It didn’t matter, though– I was there doing a job I love, covering a crucial point in history.
Chaos may have felt inescapable Tuesday, but so was excitement. And, for me, overshadowing both those things was appreciation.
As a reporter who just spent the entire day live-posting on X from Capitol Hill, I feel it’s only appropriate to refer back to a post I saw– and reposted, of course– from Washington Post Reporter Leigh Ann Caldwell that said, “Just taking a step back, we are, once again, watching history in real time. I have gotten to say that so many times in this job. Grateful.”