Speaker Kevin McCarthy joined me this morning:

Audio:

10-09hhs-mccarthy

Transcript:

HH: I’m joined by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, longtime friend of mine and of the program. Good morning, Mr. Speaker. Great to have you back.

KM: Good morning. Thanks for having me back on. And this, how the whole world has changed over the weekend. Just a horrific situation that we’re in currently right now.

HH: I am going to talk to you in a moment about the GOP caucus, but let, you’re a longtime friend of Israel. You’ve stood by Israel forever. What ought the United States to be doing right now on its behalf?

KM: There are a number of things. And you’re right. I have spoken to a number of people in Israel from the speaker and others that are personal friends. And President Herzog just said, called me last week prior to this, a number of things. The first thing we need to do is show a clear support for Israel long term. Secondly, we should support…and they’re going to need this with the number of hostages that were taken. We should build our own team from the individuals from the hostage situation to help them in this endeavor. Americans were taken as well. We have the right to do it. We should take this from a very clear perspective. Hamas has to be destroyed, but this is not just Hamas. This is directly tied to Iran. We have to change our posture with Iran. No longer appeasement. This goes into every affiliate that Iran supports. We have to change our demeanor and posture when it comes to sanctions to Iran. We should not enhance Iran to produce more petroleum. We should look at our own domestic ability to produce petroleum and not let Iran continue to grow. We’ve got to make sure again that Israel has the sophisticated ammunition they need to carry out not a short-term, but a long-term battle, that Hamas has to be fully destroyed. Then, we have to take the example of what just happened here and saying to our own intelligence, what do we have along our border? What cells have we allowed to come in here? The number of people that we have caught on the terrorist watch list just in the month of February of this year was more than the entire last administration. Even when you’re looking at California, I remember just looking at two coming from Yemen on different days. And the last thing we have to do is we should call upon all of that anti-Semitism growth around the world, but here in America itself. Every president at every university has the responsibility to stand up to what is happening there. But that also goes for the halls of Congress. When the number of members and what they have said, and the anti-Semitism, to have a Democrat leader that responds to no comment, that is not leadership. And this president needs to shift and change his appeasement policy into something much different, and he should speak to the nation while at the same time speaking to the world what it means to have a relationship with Israel, and firmly standing behind them for the long term.

HH: Mr. Speaker, my wife is an alumni of Davis, and she just showed me a text message that went out to all alumni at Davis that is, at best, equivocal. I mean, it’s at worst, stand by Palestine. I don’t know how to describe it, it was so bad. What has happened and what can the Congress do about this?

KM: You know, the Congress should start with its own self. I remember when Tlaib wanted to have an anti-Semitism meeting. I canceled the room. You have 10 members of the Democratic Party that voted against funding for the Iron Dome, a defensive weapon to stop the rockets from coming in. And now, they’re being overwhelmed. You have individuals who speak of anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party now. Everybody should speak with one voice. But this is also within college campuses. This is why Congress should actually be acting on this, and there should be a five-part plan from our own ability to help, from our own ability to look at our own intelligence for what’s happening on our border, from our own energy production. But this starts with Iran. Iran is the individuals that are funding this. And it’s not $6 billion. It’s more like $60 billion. It is the allowing of them to sell oil on the market. It’s removing of the sanctions. It’s the appeasement. When this administration shifted and started paying for hostages, more Americans are being taken. This is a correct direction of what this administration has done, and they need to reverse action now. And Congress should take the action that the administration is not.

HH: Well, right now, Mr. Speaker, Congress is paralyzed, because of course, eight Republicans joined with every Democrat to evict you from the Speaker’s chair last week. The Republicans meet tomorrow. If there is a deadlock, and I fear there might be, would you be willing to stand up and become the Speaker again?

KM: Look, the conference has to make that decision. I’m still a member. I’m going to continue to fight and act. I know what it means to have a strong America and a strong relationship with Israel. From every term I’ve been in, I have led all the freshmen to Israel. My first trip as Speaker was to Israel to speak at the Knesset at the 75th anniversary of the creation of Israel. We need to not part in any way and show no weakness here. And we’ve got to understand that this is not an interaction like they’ve had before. This is something that hasn’t happened in 50 years. We have to understand as Americans, and I’ve got to give you a lot of credit, because you have always talked about foreign policy. But even on your tweets, what this means to America, what happened in Israel, I mean, there are 700 Israelis, going to 800 who were murdered. That is equivalent of almost 30,000 Americans if you take the size. And America has to understand what’s going on. This is not a time for what’s happening in our colleges. This is a time for strength. This is a time to stand together. This is a time for assistance. And this is a time for Congress to speak as one voice.

HH: So I want to come back and press you a little bit.

KM: Yeah.

HH: Let me go back, Mr. Speaker, because I do fear a deadlock, because I know that there are hundreds of Kevin McCarthy…it was eight Republicans brought you down. I don’t know if they can change their mind, but I don’t think we’re going to get to a Speaker other than Kevin McCarthy this week, and we can’t not have a Speaker right now. Would you be willing to go back if those eight retreated?

KM: Look, whatever the conference wants, I will do. I think we need to be strong. I think we need to be united. The eight, in my view, don’t look to be…it was a personal thing. It wasn’t about where we were going. Think for one moment. If you take some of their comments of why they did this, because I kept the government open? Could you imagine? They’re the ones that stopped appropriations bills from going forward. They’re the ones who voted against a continuing resolution that secured our border and cut spending. They’re the ones who wanted a government shutdown. We wouldn’t be paying our troops while we’re putting out a carrier strike fighter there, a 30,000 American men and women in our armed services in the Middle East wouldn’t be being paid right now? I mean, what weakness would we be at?

HH: Well, I know one thing, Mr. Speaker.

KM: Yeah.

HH: If we had shut down the government, we would be blamed for the intelligence failure that led to this massacre. We did not shut down the government. We still had an intelligence failure. But if we had, you would be blamed for the intelligence failure.

KM: Yeah. So don’t just look to the eight. Also remember what the Democrats did. The Democrats made the same political decision that Matt Gaetz and Mace did. This is a Gaetz-Mace-Hakeem-Pelosi decision. They thought let’s pick politics over the best what’s for America, right? They think take Kevin off the playing field so they could try to win a majority instead of wondering what the rest of the world’s going to look at, and wondering whether their government should stay funded. That is the difficulty that we have in Washington. It’s the moment in time for adults in the room to show leadership, put partisanship aside, and do what is best for this nation. And I will never back away from my decision. I put America first, and that’s what I’m going to continue to do.

HH: Mr. Speaker, Matt Gaetz, we don’t have to spend any time on. I think he escaped from the Wuhan lab with the virus. But Nancy Mace, I want to talk about Nancy Mace, because you got her elected. I had her on this show. I have the tape. I have the receipts of her thanking you profusely for getting her elected. What was that all about?

KM: I’m not sure. I spent more than $6 million, supported her in the primary, supported her in the back room, supported her when Trump went away. She says I didn’t keep my promise. If you talk to her chief of staff, which I called trying to deal with her, he said I kept every single promise. If you look at the last bill we voted on, it was her bill. If you look at her rape kit bill, it was passed. She said I didn’t bring a balanced budget up. She didn’t introduce it until September 17th-18th. We’re sitting in October. So I mean, I don’t quite understand. It may be the same reasons that they just want attention. They’ve got to stop that. The attention has to be on the American citizens, not their own person.

HH: Now Mr. Speaker, two of the people who started the ball rolling are Dan Bishop and Ralph Norman. They backed away, because they knew it was insane to throw you out. But I still blame them. I count it as a gang of ten. Are you being more generous to them than you are to the other eight?

KM: Look, I know the world in which I serve and live. I just wish they would find the damage. This is the only place conservatives have a majority. And we have a small majority, a five-seat majority. But look how much we accomplished in a short timeframe. You want to look to the Senate when they get a debt ceiling? We have the largest cut in American history. We also got work requirements. We also got NEPA reform for the first time in four years. We’ve been doing appropriations, which we hadn’t done in the past. We had the parents’ bill of rights. We passed the bills to make us energy independent. We passed the most conservative border security bill in our history. We increased funding for the military at the same time that we cut the spending. I mean, and then every step of the way, this little gang would stop appropriation bills from coming, and then say I didn’t do the job. Well, it’s all 218 that have to do it. This is the plan that they had from the beginning, unfortunately, and I think as a nation, we need to come above this, because we’re watching what’s happening around the world, that was different today than it was before.

HH: Now Mr. Speaker, can you tell people, we’ve got a minute left, what you would have been doing this weekend as one of the gang of 8 had you not been removed last week? What would have been different, because we don’t have a Republican Speaker. We don’t have a Speaker.

KM: Yeah.

HH: And so they can’t go to the meetings. What would you have been doing?

KM: Look, we would have gotten more of the intel. I’ve still been able to call from those who serve in the Knesset, the speaker, the ambassador and others. But what we would be doing in Congress today, we would first start with a resolution to show the world we’re united, calling around to other world leaders to join on. We would be looking at our own intel on our own border. We would be going through and making sure that any high tech ammunition that Israel needs and any sources for Iron Dome and others, we would pass that to make sure we’d be able to go. We’d look at our own domestic ability for energy to make sure Iran…we’d look at sanctions against Iran at the same time to send a really clear message that even if the Secretary of State says well, he doesn’t have any clear evidence, Iran says they’ve done it. Hamas says they’ve done it. So you’ve got to look to Iran to do it. And then we would start with the basis of going after any anti-Semitism that is happening not just on our college campuses, but directly in Congress itself as well.

HH: Mr. Speaker, thank you for joining me. I’m glad to know that if they say Kevin, will you come back, you’ll say yes. And I appreciate your willingness to do that. That would, that takes a large-souled person, and I appreciate everything you have done, and I think will continue to do in the Congress. Thank you, Speaker McCarthy. Always a pleasure to talk to you.

KM: Thank you.

End of interview.