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Jan. 27, 2023 - Triggered - Donald Trump Jr
03:05
Kevin McCarthy On His Youth and The Value of Work
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Time Text
My family didn't have wealth.
I didn't have the academics.
I didn't have the athletics to get a scholarship.
I went to junior college, which was a great school.
But while I'm going there, I meet this guy.
That owns a liquor store but has a car dealer's license.
I'll let you figure out how I met him.
But one day I say, I'll give you a hundred bucks if you take me to L.A. Because L.A. has these car auctions.
You've got to be a dealer to get in there. And Bakersfield is two hours away.
So I start going down there and I start flipping cars to pay my way through college.
I find out later it's illegal, but I don't know why I'm doing it.
I've been an entrepreneur, right? By the way, just so you understand, we may have to cut this out.
Nancy Pelosi is going to try to figure out how to impeach you for doing something.
Exactly. Exactly. So when you go to community college, what you do on the weekends, you go visit your buddies away.
My best friend was a running back for Stanford.
I grew up to Stanford. I had some buddies at USC. I had some buddies at San Diego State.
So this weekend, I was going to go to San Diego State.
So I go pick up my friend.
We go to the grocery store to cash a check so I have some money.
The day before, the lottery starts in California.
So as I'm cashing the check, my first time, I buy a lottery ticket.
And I won the lottery. Now, it's before there were millions.
The most you could win was $5,000.
But put yourself... I think it's like...
Is it 1985? I'm 20 years old.
It's Friday night. I just won $5,000.
And I end up 10 minutes from Tijuana for the weekend, right?
So I come back. I take my folks to dinner.
I get my brother and sister to each other in the box.
I take the majority of the rest of the money. I put it in one stock.
Because one thing you'll learn... I'm a risk taker.
I make 30% of my money in six weeks.
So the end of the semester comes...
I take my money on the market, I refinance some of my cars, and I go and I try to buy a franchise, but no one will sell me one because I'm 20 years old.
So just like in the speaker's race, I never give up.
So I go and I open a deli.
My cousin had a yogurt shop.
He'd ridden this place before, so I sublet this place.
And there's three lessons I learned in my business.
I was the first to work, last to leave, last to be paid.
But you know what? I had it for almost two years, and I've come pretty successful.
I now have enough money that I can pay my whole way through college as long as I go to Cal State.
And nobody in my family had finished a four-year degree yet, so I sell my business.
I'm going to college. I open up the local newspaper, and the local congressman says, become an intern in Washington, D.C. I thought, well, he'd be lucky to have me.
So I apply, and you know what he does?
He turns me down. So you know what the end of the story is?
I'm now elected to the seat I couldn't get an internship for, and now I'm the 55th Speaker of the House.
Only in America can that happen.
That's amazing. You don't give up.
And you know what? What taught me each time, if there was an obstacle, Don't quit because it's an obstacle.
Find a way around it.
That's what this country embeds in you and rewards you for doing.
Yeah, and I feel like that's also something that's missing in so much of Congress where people are just, they've just been, they've never actually had that hustle.
Now, again, I understand where I come from in my background.
I get it. But, like, my father made sure I worked minimum wage jobs.
Oh, yeah. And I could drive a D10 Caterpillar.
And, like, you know, I also worked for TIPS, which is something I think that's really important that everyone should understand.
It is. That aspect of things.
But in D.C., I feel like so much of that is lacking.
No one's ever had to make payroll.
No one's signed the front of a check as opposed to the back.
So it's sort of unique.
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