Kevin McCarthy on losing the Speakership and his biggest fear for 2024

Hi everyone, welcome back. Brian Kilmeade Show. With me in studio is Ken McCarthy. I hate to say a performer, Speaker of the House. Does that bother you? No, once the Speaker always... look, I'm... Can I say Speaker?

I could say Speaker... Look, there's only been 56... It's the same thing. But look, would I rather still be able to? Yeah, but you can never take away what we accomplished. I mean, what's interesting is, I was Speaker, but I've been Republican leader for five years.

So I always want to look at, have I left it in a better place that I received it? So, when I became leader, we were in the minority. We just got defeated in the election. And I remember going to the State of the Union.

President Trump was there, and you know, one side stands up, then the other side stands up. The Democrats looked like America, and we looked like the most restrictive country club in America. We were the 98% white male. In those two election cycles, when the Republicans lost the presidency, the Senate lost both cycles, the governors, the state legislature, we only won. But what did we win? We elected the most women ever in the history of the Republican Party, the most minorities, the most black Republicans since Reconstruction. Look at what we achieved in that time period, too.

Not only like that. We have a four-seat majority today. When I became leader, Nancy Pelosi became Speaker, we gained five more seats in California, five more in New York. We flipped a Democrat seat to Republican that hadn't been done in California since the 1990s. We won the majority. For the first, it's only the third time in history, in the last 70 years, that the Republicans win the majority. At the same time, Republicans were losing, right? And then what did we do with this majority, right?

Well, the first thing we did might be inside baseball. Well, I'm going to bring you to that because I know you were frustrated you couldn't answer this question. You were not on the floor.

Oh, God, I wish I would have been. So when Congressman Chip Roy was so angry that Speaker Johnson passed with Democratic votes a two-tier continuing resolution, which got you ousted because eight people thought that was the worst thing ever. But this thing, after this, Chip Roy said this. I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing, one, that I can go campaign on and say we did. One. Anybody sitting in the complex, if you want to come down to the floor and come explain to me one material, meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done besides, well, I guess it's not as bad as the Democrats. And you were frustrated because you wanted to answer Chip, who, by the way, was on your side through this whole thing.

Yes. You know what? I would have gone to the floor if I heard Chip say that, and I would have asked for unlimited time because this is what I would have started with. He said, what has the new Republican majority done inside the House? So let's walk through what we did. In the very first day, on the first option, we repealed all those IRS agents out of the House to the Senate. We made the biggest cut in American history, more than $2 trillion. We passed work requirements where the Democrats said they would never vote for. We put a 1% cut across— Into Social Security, into welfare. Into welfare reform. This is welfare reform we're doing. We put in there a 1% cut across the board if you don't do all your appropriation bills, something that's never been seen before. NEPA reform. This is environmental reform if you want to build something. It takes you seven years to build a home. For the first time in 40 years, we passed that.

Then let's just walk through. First thing we did, we made sure members no longer could vote proxy. They had to show up to vote. Bills had to come through committee. Then we made sure that you had 72 hours to read anything.

That's just structurally change. Then when the Democrats wanted to decriminalize carjacking, murder in Washington, D.C., there hasn't been a Congress to stand up to the D.C. courts for more than 30 years, the council. Not only did that, we put it into law. We put a bill across the desk that ended the pandemic.

You know what that ended for America able to do? We put across the desk that you could no longer kick members out of the military if they didn't take the vaccine based upon their religion. Then we passed H.R. 1 to make America energy independent, the most comprehensive bill for all the above. We passed the bill for securing the border, H.R.

2. We haven't been able to do this when we had a 30 seat majority. It is the most conservative border security bill in history. But you didn't get to conference on a lot of it.

Right? Well, we're going into conference. Look, the House can only do the House and then the Senate. Then we pass NDAA, which is in conference, Parents Bill of Rights. So this is just within nine months.

There was a study done when it came to August. They analyzed this Congress with the last Congress where the Democrats controlled Congress, the Senate and the White House. You know who had more bills signed and more bills passed? This Congress.

It's one of the most productive Congresses. So you were surprised that no one stood up and said... Well, he did it on a flyaway day. No one knows he's going down to it. Everybody's gone.

But does he understand, too, and I like him, but does he understand he has provided an ad for every Democratic candidate that wants control? They're already in people's districts. It's crazy. So I want to talk about today, and I know this is not, nothing of this is news to you, but it seems to be a rash of retirements. The Democratic side, nine House members are leaving to run the Senate, including Congressman Dean Phillips, who's running for president. Aging, other concerns are contributing, too. 79% of Americans now support age limits for elected officials. But George Santos, obviously, how many are you guys losing right now to retirement?

They just don't want to do it anymore. Well, we're going to have a few. This is natural. And what you're going to find is you're going to see a string of retirements that get announced right after Thanksgiving and right after Christmas.

Some of it pales on a time period when you have to file to run again. The other thing is you come home. And I expected this out of Democrats, because what happens when a party loses the majority, even though they're streamlining to lose the majority, they kind of pressure their members. No, no, stay with us because you can't leave now. If you leave in a bad win, we'll lose the seat. So they stayed with it and they went into the minority. So those members say, I don't want to stay around. I think you're going to see quite a few more.

And it's going to be a turnover. It's a natural. On the Republican side, there's a frustration there, too. Could be part what they what those eight have done. I've heard from a number of members that way. But that's an announcing you. Yeah.

But there's also a good thing here. Think about Spamburger not running again. That's because we've been challenging our almost beater. Kildee, we challenged him really strong. But Slotkin, she's running for Senate, but we almost beat her.

Those are pickups. We are in a better position, even though we won the last two cycles. Republicans in the House are in a better.

We have a better climate to win more seats this cycle than the last two cycles. But the view between the chaos of the 22 days to decide the new speaker between everyone see me turning on each other, it just looked terrible for 22 days. And it was probably hardest on you in the beginning.

Could you describe your mindset? And towards the end, if I could just say for my what I observed, you start to get angry like this is ridiculous. The reasoning they're giving, the more you looked at it and to see them struggle to fill your slot. It made no every day. You must have thought to yourself, this makes absolutely no sense.

Well, it's frustrating from the sense that we are the only body that has a majority for Republicans. And I know what the Democrats what they have done to us and why we were fighting among ourselves. Right. And I look, I can always look at hindsight, but it's personal. It was one guy person.

He's trying to protect his ethics. I get all that. But and then a few others never voted for me anyways. And so but to have to have 100 percent, it's very difficult. And what was frustrating to me, OK, they did it to me.

It's personal to me. But then you went in and you took Steve Scalise out and then you took Jim Jordan. Jim Jordan, they took out. And I'm sitting by the way, you supported both.

Yes. And then Tom Emmer. So what I'm thinking, here we are.

You removed me. But who are some people who could do this job? And the thing that they're not quite realizing, these eight. This is second aligned to the presidency right after the vice president. The responsibilities of this job are different than someone sitting back and looking and they're wanting to make a decision. These other individuals, there's more to the job than just policy. There's more to the job than just campaign.

And these other three were capable of doing this job. You know, the biggest surprise is the Congresswoman from South Carolina. She says you did not tell her the truth.

And she teams, she teams with Matt Gaetz. You know, it's interesting she says that, but she never tells you one thing I didn't tell the truth on. I couldn't understand why she was doing this. This is Nancy Mace.

So I, I called her chief of staff and it was like a day or two before. I said, hey, I just saw her say this. Is there something? Look, I'm not perfect.

I fall, but I can't, I can't wave a magic wand. But is there something I said I would do that I did not try to do? So I asked, I asked him, I said, hey, is there something?

I'm asking my staff and my staff says we've done and followed through. And he goes, no, you've done everything. I said, well, does she know that?

Yeah, she does know that. So I don't know. I'm Dana Perino. Join me for my brand new podcast, Perino on Politics, as we analyze the 2024 election cycle. Make sure you subscribe to this series on Fox News podcast dot com or wherever you download podcasts and leave me a rating and review. From the Fox News podcast network, I'm Ben Domenech, Fox News contributor and editor of the transom dot com daily newsletter. And I'm inviting you to join a conversation every week. It's the Ben Domenech podcast.

Subscribe and listen now by going to Fox News podcast dot com. And then to see or sit with Steve Bannon and Matt Gaetz and say you're the problem, which I understand the thing is, when you get this job, in my view, you have to understand when to sometimes you got to stand alone. Right. And other times you got to understand you're on a team. You got to sometimes you got to explain to your district for the best thing for my party to keep the majority had to do this. Other times you go, Kevin, I cannot do this. We're an oil drilling company or I'm in the Everglades. I can't do.

There are certain that but I just don't think these people were ever on a team before. When that rose, I'm interviewing Matt Rosedale and he says, I will never vote for a continuing resolution. I go, but you're not done with the appropriations bills when you if you were done with it. He's not saying I'm going to do an omnibus.

If you said I'm doing an omnibus, I see a lot of people go and I can't believe we're doing that. But it's just a continuation to get what you're supposed to get done. You guys couldn't agree with each other in committee. Why is that your fault that in committee they couldn't agree, Republicans couldn't agree with Republicans? But with the difficulty, too, like a Matt Rosedale who said he wouldn't vote for a continuing resolution, which is just funding government while you work out the others. He was voting against bringing the appropriation bills up. So these eight.

I did not know that. These eight who are all upset about this, blaming for this, they shut all of government down for a week. Then they'd shut down the rules so we couldn't bring the bill up. So all they were doing is bringing in.

That's why you could see that it's it's it was just a personal thing. And I get that we can move on from there. But they're hurting the whole country. They're hurting the party.

So let's talk about this. I watched your speech about foreign policy and it just makes me think that if any Republican wins, it'd be crazy not to tap you for secretary of state or some type of policy position in the White House. Be nuts to not to not only do you not know what you're doing, but you don't navigate Congress.

It's a skill set that almost nobody has. Number two, it doesn't matter how good a legislator or what kind of leader you are, if you can't work Congress, you're not going to get anything done. So number two is the big thing now is a package to fund Ukraine, fund Taiwan, fund Israel. And the Republicans come back and say, add in the border. Schumer says, I got to get this done before vacation. You have Mark Turner, Mike Turner come out and say it's not going to get done before vacation. You better include the border.

Give me the play by play. Well, this was some of the discussion ahead of time, too, because remember, all this happened with the speaker's race a few days before Israel got invaded by the terrorist Hamas. Look, what I see happening around the world, it looks a lot like the 1930s. And my biggest concern is in the 30s, you had Italy, Germany and Japan building together the axis of evil. You have the same thing now with China, Russia and Iran and North Korea.

And what we need to find is make sure we can do the job. I remember having this discussion with then Vice President Biden about selling weapons to Ukraine so Russia would never invade. I remember talking to President Biden when I was before before they invaded Ukraine and telling him sanctions won't work. But those people used to say, yeah, Putin has lived under sanctions, still a wealthy man, but this appeasement won't work.

And his policies are hurting. So I spent a lot of time being part of the Gang of Eight, but traveling the world, talking to leaders. Look, when Israel celebrated their 75th anniversary of the creation, they invited me to be the speaker of the Knesset.

I love the opportunity to go see the King of Jordan, going down to Egypt, seeing Assisi. And you know what Assisi said to me when we walked in with the delegation? He goes, I watched all 15 rounds of your vote for speaker.

I love that you never gave up. So, I mean, what's unique here is America matters. The president of Egypt is watching what happens to the speaker. Right. So it matters about how we go about this. We need to make sure that we don't have World War Three. We need to learn from the mistakes in World War Two of appeasement and this idea we can walk and chew gum at the same time, but we can do the border.

Can you do that? We can do Ukraine and we can use leverage on the border. I don't think because Democrats need actually the best thing for Democrats, you're not going to like it, is to change the asylum policy and start securing the border and building that wall.

Then you would actually help them in 2024. If you just want to play politics, you wouldn't do anything on the border. You just argue about it and you'd cream the Democrats. The biggest gap that the Democrats have on any policy, they're losing all the different policies in any polling, is immigration.

So... And Democrats privately have come to me. Can I ask you to be an analyst for a second? Yes. Can you tell me if something's going to get done before the holidays? You could see this in your head how it's going to play out.

I don't think it gets done before the holidays, but I think it gets done. And the border, the border's a part of it. Look, the Senate now, this was the whole play of what I did, of why I did the continuing resolution. Instead of shutting down, we would have had no chance to do the border. It puts you in a weaker hand if you shut government down.

Can you imagine not paying the troops to be in the budget? Yeah, we would have lost all of it. So what I did was I moved it forward and I took care of America's emergencies, right? Remember the fire in Hawaii, in Maui? Remember the floods that we had around in Vermont and in Florida? So we paid the disaster money and we funded government.

So we took that out so people couldn't use that for other reasons. And we were putting aside Ukraine so you had to deal with the border at the same time. So you know that Speaker Johnson's going to stand up and go, yeah, I heard him say it. I think Ukraine's important. Yes. You realize most of the Republican Party, at least publicly, like Senator Josh Hawley, and I'm not saying they don't have a right to believe what they believe, but they are against funding Ukraine.

So Johnson's going to get huge pushback from Chip Roy and company about funding Ukraine. So if you bundle it together... If you become Speaker, you can't sit and worry if someone's going to throw you out or not. You've got to just do what's right. And I'll go down in history.

Maybe I got removed, but I did what was right. History will prove that. And this is the thing I think, too, is part of the reasons why Republicans are opposing Ukraine, they think we're just giving money to Ukraine. What they don't quite understand is we're providing them weapons out of our stockpile, and we're using our money to build new weapons.

So what we're giving them is the iPhone 5, why we go build a new iPhone 4. Or are they making it simple for their district? Do they really know what you know? And they're just saying things with the camera, and they think they're polling in their district, and they're polling in their district says, we're done with Ukraine. Well, that's really what's happening. But no, but you also have to explain to Americans, people are frustrated. What's happening on the border should not happen.

And we shouldn't have to leverage something for the other. But you know what? This is politics. We're going to do it. And it's the right thing to do.

It is. We're going to secure our border. So do you think you get this done before Christmas or not? I don't know that it gets done before Christmas, because I haven't seen the Senate move anything. And I've told the White House early on, they shouldn't just send us... Before they sent that supplemental to us in the back, which meaning the funding for Ukraine, I called them up and I said, you've never spoken to me.

Don't send me a supplement on what you think you need. Sit down with us. I've got a number of veterans, Navy SEALs and others, who fought in the region. They get it. And they get it. Why don't we sit down so we know exactly what we need and we have input? That is a better way to going about doing it, because you don't want to send any waste.

You want to go stream through it, see what is needed. And the other thing I told the White House to us, I'm not interested in just sending money to Ukraine. I want to know what's the plan to win. You don't sit out and go into a battle and hope you win.

You put criteria down and you measure yourself. Right. And you know they can't win without an air force. And we're taking our time training people. And you know that they can't win without attack'ems, it looks like. Everything Biden has done has been slow and carried this war on. And the other thing, too, is they sat there and they slowed the war and then they built up all for the summer, but they allowed Russia to have a defense. I mean, it's just... And that was a little Ukraine's problem, too. But the discussion with him, what he did in Afghanistan of how he pulled us out, created Ukraine, because that's what Putin saw. And when he went to meet with Putin, it was just like Neville Chamberlain, peace for our time. He lifted the sanctions Biden did off Nord Stream, too, but asked nothing in return.

But what he did in Afghanistan by creating those 13 new Gold Star families by just pulling out, not listening to the military, that has harmed us probably for the next two decades around the world. People are turning towards China because of that. So on this foreign policy right now, everybody wants those children and senior citizens out of Hamas-run territory. But there's a huge push to pull back and push for a ceasefire when it comes to Israel. How does Israel get back to hammering Hamas like they need to? And could they have been more precise and lessened the number of casualties that not related to the terror network?

Look, I think that's very, very difficult to do, and I know everyone's going to try to sit here and judge. But when you have a terrorist organization like Hamas that builds tunnels under a hospital that uses children as a shield and lies to them, I mean, what Hamas has done to the Palestinians is horrendous. They should want to get rid of it. Hamas is a terrorist organization that are killing palace Indians by putting them in this place. And what they did on October 7th, I mean, that is our Pearl Harbor, that is September 11th, that is everything in combined. You have to destroy. But the reason- But it's going to be hard to get back to destroying because, and I'm for it, you've got to wipe them out. But do we have to go World War II style, wipe them out, where we just carpet bomb Berlin?

No, you want to be able to have precision. But think of it, I've been to Israel many times. I've watched what transpired. That kibbutz I was in just the February before.

I see the soccer fields right by there. But what transpired, have you seen the 42-minute tape that is- I have not yet. I think everyone that can stomach it should see it because it is the body cameras from Hamas. It is their phone calls of what they're saying. They're posting. They're not fighting the military. They're in slaughtering innocent children and they're chopping heads off and they're celebrating the calling home to their mother, I did it with my own hands, I killed 10. These are people who are unarmed, who are asleep.

It's horrendous what has transpired. So Hamas harms everybody in the world. But when you really think about this, who funds them?

And why are they even there? Do you know in the international monetary exchange, when Biden took over, Iran only had $4 billion. They have $70 billion today. It's because they're able to sell the oil. We have sanctions against Iranian oil. They don't enforce it.

They went from 400,000 barrels a day to 3 million. It's nuts. Houthi rebels, Hamas, as well, have one thing in common. Iran. Iran.

And so until we address that and this administration, everyone can make mistakes. But for them to do with eight years of Barack Obama did, they come back and they say, Iran, we're going to welcome you into the family nations. And their answer is, we're going to create havoc with the money you're allowing us to make. From the first day, they didn't lean into the Abraham Accords. They went after Saudi Arabia. They embraced Iran. So what they told... And the Houthi rebels, they took them off the terrace.

Yeah, and they told our friends, no, we're going to punish you and we're going to pee somebody else. They've created this mess and this climate that we are sitting in the world today. I just want to get you to know what the Democrats are saying.

If we can, Eric, cut number 12, ROK-Kahana. This is what he said, we should go to a ceasefire. Their military capability has been diminished with the bombing in northern Gaza.

But their political support and sometimes actually increases every time you have images of children and women killed. That's why there has to be a diplomatic solution. Until there is an independent Palestinian state, there is not going to be peace or security in that region. And America needs to show leadership. I believe our Gulf allies will help us if we bring the diverse Palestinian voices to the table. There needs to be one condition. Any Palestinian voice at that table needs to recognize the state of Israel. And then we need to work towards an independent Palestinian state. What planet is he on? He's too smart for this. Can you name?

And if there was one, I'd love to see it. A Palestinian official that says, listen, sorry about Hamas, work with me. You know what? Hamas took over Gaza. Gaza was some of the most beautiful land. They had the most beautiful nurseries.

They're sitting right on the ocean. They could be the most productive. But he doesn't want Hamas in the meetings. He says, I'll have other people. Is there anything practical about what he said?

No. I mean, and he sounds to me an appeasement in the process. I don't think it's America that can dictate in here. What has to happen is Hamas has to be destroyed. Hamas, it's not good for anybody in the world.

And the other thing, too, is we can't dictate inside Israel. To get to a negotiation table, I think they've got to be able to carry out the mission that they are. They send the leaflets out. They're trying to provide in the safest manner possible.

But they also, they were attacked. So I want to ask you about China. You have given money back from different factions that will link to the PRC.

When you found out about it, you gave the money back. There are other lawmakers who are not. How strong is the Chinese lobby, including TikTok specifically, or one of it, and how do I identify it and push it out of Washington? I don't know that any member knows that China would be specific because it would be illegal for them to give. This is my concern. When I became speaker, I created the Select Committee on China.

I literally went to Hakeem and I talked to him about what I wanted to do. And my whole idea of why I created this committee, at the 75th anniversary of Normandy, I was walking the grave sites within Speaker Pelosi. And I thought, as policymakers, what could they have done that that day would have never come? Right? These kids are all about the same age.

They come from different faiths, from the Star of David to crosses. And it wouldn't be a week or so before, it'd be decades before. And then I watched in the pandemic, where if we were at war with China, in 30 days we'd be in trouble because resupplying. We've let China control different industries. They control 90% of critical minerals, but they control 95% of the processing of critical minerals. They control 50% of the medical supply and others. So I wanted to take China out of the partisanship. And we put Gallagher in, who's done a really tremendous job.

It's been a very good group meeting. We just found a lab in the Central Valley of California, just outside my district. You know how we found that it was Chinese-owned?

There was a water hose coming out, and it was just a city employee, solid regulation. She calls the CDC and others. They have Ebola inside there. They have thousands of rats. They're testing things that they don't have a right to test.

No one would look at it. I sent it to the Select Committee on China. They came back where others failed. $2 million from China has gone into this lab. This guy's not even supposed to be in America. He was found guilty in Canada, and he's Chinese and came into America.

They are in our university systems. They're spending a lot of money on spies. One of the first things I did as Speaker 2, kicked Eric Swalwell off the Intel Committee.

If you had got the briefing I had, you wouldn't allow him in Congress. Well, 2016, China had lobbied, you spent $334 million lobbying. So they're spending probably more than that now. They spend more than any other country.

Think about this. How expensive it is to have spies everywhere. That spy that Eric Swalwell had the relationship, met him when he was a city councilman.

Helped him when he ran. The driver for the late Senator Feinstein for 10 years was a Chinese spy. They focus on the Silicon Valley.

Why? Our technology. They focus on our college campus. Where did Eric Swalwell meet him?

Not on a high university, but on a small university. He met this individual. They are in Iowa. They care about our farming community.

They're in every aspects of our lives, and if we don't understand this, and if we don't fight back against it, we're going to regret this day. Do you think you can personally identify lobbying firms linked to the Chinese government? Well, I think some of these lobbying firms don't realize by the way they fund the money to someone somewhere else.

What the Chinese government does is very sophisticated. They'll take these sister cities, right? They go to an unconspecting small town mayor and say, oh, this is really great.

We're all together. We should work harder. You should tell your elected official that we're going to do more. They come in and buy more products from this city or others, and they try all different avenues. Because I think they can get a capitalist country where everybody buys money. Yeah, and what they try to do is then they take over an industry, and they dump and take that industry out of America, and they control it. And they try to get the, they steal our intellectual property rights.

They try to have influence. I mean, think for one, I have Lemoore Naval Air Base. It has the F-35s there. At the end of the runway, I just found this out when I was home. At the end of the runway, a Canadian company owns a solar field. And this field is catching on fire, okay? But I've now been told that maybe this Canadian company is tied to a Chinese company. Why would they want a solar field at the end of a runway that has the F-35, and why would it be catching on fire?

Are there sensors out there? I don't know. But I'm taking this to Gallagher back, and we're watching them buy up our farmland.

We're watching them send balloons over. Well, you've got a guy like DeSantis who pushed back in this state. Do you need governors to push back? I mean, it just seems as though this could be one thing that, as you mentioned, the bipartisan look. But it doesn't seem like Joe Biden has the same approach as Donald Trump.

Joe Biden doesn't have the same approach. I mean, think about the appeasement of how they handled China now. They have gone back. They apologize. They go through. They go and visit China on the anniversary of Tiananmen Square. Come on.

Right. I think what you're finding in Congress, though, I'm going to give credit on the Democrat side too. That committee on China is the future of what America should do on how to deal with China. Was Nancy Pelosi wrong to go to Taiwan? Well, look, she has a right to go to Taiwan, but this is very interesting. You compare what she did and how I met with Taiwan's president. She wasn't in a bipartisan group.

There wasn't a mission behind it. Was there a purpose or was it to check off a list that she went to Taiwan, right? She allowed China to have military training now to how they would invade Taiwan.

She held back the place. When the president of Taiwan came to America, you know where I met her? At the Reagan Library.

Right. No greater symbolism of America defeating communism than the Reagan Library. I had a bipartisan group, Republicans and Democrats, equal. We had a purpose in charge. These were those who were sitting on the Select Committee of China.

When we did our press conference outside, I had 172 different cameras. We had the Berlin Wall behind it. Andrea Mitchell took the first question, she said, you know, I was at the Berlin Wall when Reagan gave that speech and it brought me to tears. She says, I'm moved today by seeing both parties here doing exactly what you should be doing.

It helps. There's certain areas which it's a natural bipartisan. Does it worry you that President Trump, who is winning in all the polls and beating Joe Biden head to head, does not have the same Ukraine vision and does not have the same concern about Taiwan as a guy like you do? Look, I think from the perspective, the president, he was right about the Abraham Accords. He's been right about NATO not paying their fair share in the process. There was no war during that time. I think he engaged. I watched him engaging North Korea.

They weren't testing missiles at that time, too. The world was a different place. You think he's somebody who listens. Just like, for example, he's going to pull everyone out of Syria. And then at the last minute, he said, I'm going to leave. And there's still 900 people.

Look, I watched you. Any time somebody comes in as president, they get judged. And they were testing him in Syria. And I remember him sitting down with Xi at Mar-a-Lago passing dessert and said, oh, by the way, I got 53 cruise missiles going right then. He knows how to use that diplomacy at the right time. And he's willing to listen to his military. Something that we watched Biden did not do in Afghanistan.

So in other words, he's not going to agree with everything. He had Mike Pompeo as his secretary of state. I served with Mike. Mike graduated from West Point, number one in his class.

This guy knew what he was doing around the world, too. What are the stakes if a Republican doesn't win and Joe Biden gets four more years? Well, I'm very concerned just about what would transpire, because if Biden won, I mean, when Biden won when I was leader, but it's the first time since 1994, not one Republican incumbent lost in the House. We were supposed to lose 15 seats. We actually beat 15 Democrats.

Biden is the weakest of any president running for reelection in modern history. I think we'd have a very big night that night. But if we were to lose, think about what happened when we just lost and we only won the House back in four years, the inflation, the runaway spending. You think they came after conservatives on the Internet today. We didn't have A.I. like we have today. They would transform. We didn't have Elon willing to stand up and buy Twitter. I mean, they systematically would come after much of our freedoms.

Think about what we went through during the pandemic, kicking people out of the military, telling people what they can and cannot do. And this is and I would never know because I'm never going to have one on one. When you sat and he met you, if you named speaker, he said, I want to go meet him. I don't really know Kevin McCarthy too well. And you came over and met when the doors closed and a handful of aides are there. Do you think you were talking to somebody that was that was that had enough to be president of the United States? Look, I had a doctor.

Did you think I'm not a doctor? And I've known Joe Biden for a number of years with the vice president. He's an older man.

He's not the same man that he that he was before I look at. I just I looked in the 1960s. We made we made a conscious decision as Americans that we started electing our leaders that were in their 40s and 50s. And if America Kennedy ran on that. Yeah. And if America is going to be the shareholders of this country and say who should run it, we need someone that doesn't put a lid on it.

We need someone that can go out and talk to us every day and answer. You know, when I went through the battle of doing the debt ceiling, I thought I was at a disadvantage. I had to get a group of members with a four seat majority to vote for a debt ceiling who I had 20 who had never, ever voted for one and not even knew it.

No one thought this was possible. So he would just ignore me. And every day I'd go to the mic. But I learned if you went to the American public, it would be different. Right. And then once we pass something, it's different scenario. He's not the same Joe he was 50 years ago.

This is a problem I have. Well, people say Trump is not the same Trump he was. I have not noticed a difference, but I haven't talked for a great period of time. I'll talk to him for 15, 20 minutes at a time. Do you think Trump at 77 is the same one as at 72? The only thing I know about Trump is this is a guy that's never needed sleep in his life. He's somebody with a stronger work ethic. I've known him for a long time. He is far more agile and everything else is going on compared to where Biden is today. And I'm no doctor on that perspective.

But I would just say... You don't worry about him getting the job for four more years? No, no, not at all. Okay. I know you have to run. Mr. Speaker, great to see you. Great to see you. And hey, I just want to tell you, you're the hardest working person that I know. You do a morning show. Thanks for saying that. You do the radio.

You do a Saturday show. You just come off positive. The one thing I want to tell the American public, and for everyone who's listening, you know, I grew up in a family of Democrats, but I've always been a Republican. And there's a reason of things that driven me. If you ever come in my office, you see Lincoln, you see Reagan, you see Teddy Roosevelt. And if Lincoln was still here today, he would tell our nation to believe in the exceptionalism of this country, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that we are all equal.

There's no other country in the world like that. But when you think about it, and people will come up to me, they came up to me and say, oh, I feel so sorry. What happened? I said, don't feel sorry for me. I was speaker.

I got to be speaker. I said, but if you look at Lincoln, he loses his first race for the State House. He fails in business. At 26, his girlfriend dies.

At 27, he has a nervous breakdown. He loses a race for speaker, which I admire the most. He becomes a congressman for one term. He fails in business again. He loses a race for Senate. He loses the race to become vice president. He loses for Senate again, then he gets elected president. He gets elected president November 1860, he gets sworn in March 1861, seven states leave the union out of the 26th. Never once did he blame Buchanan for his job problem.

He took a team of rivals, people who didn't support him, and put him in because they had experience. He built the Intercontinental Railway while he was trying to keep a country together. If you ever watched the movie Lincoln, and I showed it inside Congress, right? And so the idea here is, he had to pass the 13th Amendment before the war ended, because the idea that he had to build America, and he knew, in the Gettysburg Address where he says this at the end, he says, but if we fail government, of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from Earth. We're not the world power, but he understood America's more than a country. America's an idea.

And it's more powerful than the world power because it's governed by the people, for the people, of the people. And so the challenge here is, even in down times, and this is what you come across to me, you're a happy conservative. And if Reagan was here, Reagan would tell you, if you're a Democrat, Republican, Green Party, if you believe in your philosophy, that it brings people more freedom, be happy, don't be angry. If you're being angry, it doesn't prove that you're more conservative, it doesn't prove that you're more liberal, it proves that you don't really believe in your own philosophy and principles. Yeah.

Well, thank you. And I will say that I'd be much happy working with a Bill Moore, who's a liberal guy, but loves the country, and disagrees and he'll fight you every step of the way. I worry about there's a lot of people in Congress and they're sitting down on Manhattan Bridge blocking it on Sunday, they don't love the country, and I don't really remember a time. That's somehow, either we gotta say, fix the next generation and just give up on this one, or let them know that they hit lotto by being born here, and every day they have a chance to play in the Super Bowl. But there's some that weren't born here, that this country, she opened her arms and brought you in like nobody else, and you're one of less than 13,000 to ever have the privilege of being a member of Congress.

Why do you hate a country that would do that for you? I don't get it. But what a perfect way to end. You should be a talk show host. Hey, I got more time on my hands, I can join you. A little bit. For now.

For now. Speaker McCarthy, great to see you. Thanks so much. Back in a moment. Listen to this show ad-free on Fox News Podcast Plus, on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music with your Prime membership, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.