Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy on who can succeed Leader Mitch McConnell

First off, your reaction to Mitch McConnell leaving. How often did you work with him?

How productive? How would you describe that relationship? And your thoughts about his gradual exit?

The first thing I want to do, I want to congratulate him. He's the longest serving leader on either side in the Senate. Regardless how anybody ever feels, being leader is difficult. It's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, but the one thing I want everybody to think about, this Supreme Court, and you could judge it, but it's a conservative Supreme Court. We would never have it if it wasn't for Mitch. Mitch stood up when others didn't to get through the judges when he did.

And you know the pressure that comes on all the fights? Historically, he will always be there. He is a great statistician. He's great putting out strategies.

I worked with him a lot. The Senate has different rules in the House, right? As Speaker, I could put something on the floor. He's got to get 60 votes for everything. He can hold things up. He plays it well when he's sitting in the minority. We would disagree, but I would tell you, like when we walked into the Fiscal Responsibility Act, he could have undercut me, and he did not. He stood there, and in the White House, he says, I'm going to support whatever Kevin agrees to. I mean, that gave us the strength to cut $2.6 trillion to get welfare reform, to get NEPA reform.

We never would have been able to get that. So look, there's times and places. I just want to congratulate him for his service. So who would you think would be next? I know it's not your side, but you know these guys.

Yeah, you know, you've got the three Johns. They're all- Barrasso, Thune- Barrasso and Cornyn. They're all capable of doing it. Look, Cornyn has done the whip job. He's been the NRSC job. Thune's in the whip job now, showing the leadership.

Barrasso has been moving up with strong voice. And you know, there could be somebody else, but it's much different. Remember, this isn't like Speaker. You don't have to have 218 votes. You just need a simple majority of Republicans.

That's all you need. So look, the way I've always looked at it, if we take all the names out, everybody will write something and judge. I've been leader when I was a freshman in California. I've been leader in the State House.

I've been leader in Congress for five years. I say the best rule of thumb at night, look at the number of members who are around the other members, because that's a natural sign of leadership. They want to be around you after hours to talk about ideas, to do others. It's not what the press writes about. It's who they respect and who they want to see.

Because you've got to find out. The thing is, too, you can't do it if you want high popularity ratings. Am I correct? Oh no, it's nothing but an 80% approval rating. Look, there's a lot of people who you'll have on your show who come on every day and always, they should be a college professor with a big red pin. They always want to circle something that is wrong. They never want to tell that it's right. Because remember, our government is designed that you're going to have to have compromise at the end of the day. So how do you move it to the most conservative point, but lock that into law? Every day I could stand up here and say, what's wrong with the bill? Because it doesn't go 100%. But all it does is take you off the cliff and you go further to the left because you're not passing anything. You've got to be a conservative that's willing to govern. I mean, that's the thing that Reagan taught us.