House Speaker Paul Ryan dropped the mic on Thursday during an interview outlining his attempts to unify the Republican caucus.
"How are the efforts to unify the Republican caucus—?" MSNBC host Joe Scarborough asked during Thursday’s Morning Joe.
"Aw crap," Ryan said, stooping down to grab the battery pack of his lapel microphone. "Hang on, the whole thing fell down on us here. Can you hear me?"
"We can hear everything actually, Paul. We can hear everything. This is going to make some clips," Scarborough predicted correctly.
Ryan recovered from the equipment error to talk about the House’s recent achievements: reaching bipartisan agreement on a 5-year transportation bill and passing the Every Student Succeeds Act, an education bill to replace the No Child Left Behind Act.
"Just this week, two laws, regular order on education and infrastructure that are the biggest, most comprehensive approaches to these big, important issues in over a decade. I think we're making progress," Ryan said.
Transcript below:
JOE SCARBOROUGH: How are the efforts to unify the caucus?
PAUL RYAN: Aw, crap. The whole thing just fell down on us here.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Whatcha got there, Paul?
RYAN: Can you hear me?
BRZEZINSKI: We can hear you. Fantastic.
RYAN: I'm just going to hold this microphone.
SCARBOROUGH: We can hear everything actually, Paul. We can hear everything. This is going to make some clips. Anyway, how have your efforts gone to unify the party? I don't see—obviously it's an issue that's been around since you were working there with me. Have you made some progress over the past month or so?
RYAN: Yeah, very much so, Joe. Whether it was the refugee response, there were people who wanted to go in different directions, we unified and had a veto-proof majority, 47 Democrats joined us. Yesterday we passed the most comprehensive rewrite of our K-12 education laws since 2002 and probably the most impactful since 25 years. So a huge education bill, big bipartisan vote yesterday. Today we're going to be passing a five-year highway bill, five-year transportation infrastructure bill. We haven't done something like that in a decade and I expect a very big bipartisan vote. Just this week two laws, regular order on education and infrastructure that are the biggest, most comprehensive approaches to these big, important issues in over a decade. I think we're making progress.
SCARBROUGH: Regular order? That's downright radical in political terms.
SAM STEIN: I think we'll have to check the record. You might be the first speaker to say "oh crap" on live TV.