Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy compares today's inflation and Hamas hostage crisis to the Reagan-Thatcher era, arguing that rebuilding Western principles requires faith and liberty. He defends his legislative record despite a four-seat majority, criticizes Matt Gaetz for attention-seeking collusion with Democrats to oust him, and draws parallels between Vladimir Putin and Adolf Hitler regarding military rebuilding after democratic elections. Ultimately, McCarthy asserts that U.S. foreign policy remains driven by democracy and freedom, rejecting the notion that his removal signifies the end of his mission to make America prosperous. [Automatically generated summary]
And the other thing, when they look at American intervention, in every single war America has gone, we've done it for democracy, for freedom, and you know when we leave?
We rebuild, and the only land we ask for is just enough to bury those Americans who gave the ultimate sacrifice for them.
Have we just not done a good job selling that to our own people, to the Americans, I mean, who now seemingly are very confused about what foreign policy should be?
I worry about America when they're looking at foreign policy.
And part of that is what the Democrats have done by bringing us such great of debt, you know, so they fear we're tipping point in others.
But it looks like a lot like the 1930s.
I mean, think of that.
The actions of Putin are very similar to Hitler.
I mean, Hitler served in the German army.
He hated they signed the Treaty of Versailles.
He created a new party, ran a democracy, and again and again until he was elected, rebuilt his country by rebuilding the military, even though it went against the Treaty of Versailles.
He invaded other countries, and he took away people's freedoms.
Putin didn't serve in the Sylvanian army, but he served in the KGB.
He ran for office in a democracy, respected it, served two terms, got out, put Medved in, came back, took the power away, rebuilt his military, and then he realized the military makes you strong, but dependency makes you weak.
He used the KGB tactics to make Europe dependent on his natural gas.
But as America, if we replaced Russian natural gas for one year, do you realize we would lower CO2 emissions by 218 million tons in one year?
Because ours is 41% cleaner.
But we've got a president who attacks our own ability for natural gas that could supply our allies, and even our adversaries would have greater control over them.
And then what did he do?
He invaded other countries.
Same exact tactic.
And you need a strength.
And it's interesting being here in the UK and being from America, we watched in a time like this where you had the leaders of Reagan and Thatcher and then Faith, John Paul II.
The three of them together transformed the world.
I mean, these kids at Oxford don't understand there were two Germanys.
If it meant making sure our troops got paid, as they're sitting in the Mediterranean right now wondering if they make their car payment or their house payment or their family back home, I know I did the right thing.
America knows I did the right When eight people, four percent of your conference, partners with every single Democrat for the exact same reason, for political reasons, to try to take you out?
I admire the fact that they think I'm that important.
Secondly, too, is my record.
I have been leader for five years.
In those two election cycles, we have only won seats.
Of all the Republican entities, everybody else lost.
And you know who we won?
We were able to elect the most women in the history of the Republican Party in Congress, the most minorities in the history of the Republican Party.
I'm proud of what I left.
And if you look at the state from when I received our party in Congress and where I left it, it is so much better off.
And we're poised to win big races next time.
This is going to be one of our best election cycles.
We just had redistricting in North Carolina.
I mean, to lose seats in the next cycle will be malpractice.
I lefters with 20 million more than we've ever had.
Do you think that part of the messaging problem is that it seems to me that you were fixing things, and this is what we talked about when you had me at the Capitol, you were fixing things on the margins.
You were taking a system that was kind of screwy and figuring out ways to work with the system, where the base kind of just likes this idea that you just come in and destroy everything, whether it means you're going to rebuild anything after or not, and that's sort of the tension?
It's almost like they don't want any responsibility.
They just want to go on a podcast or something else and say they said no.
But the one thing—look, I grew up in a family of all Democrats, but I've always been a Republican, and mainly based upon Reagan, and I talked about that in here.
Look, I'm a son of a firefighter, a grandson of a cattle rancher.
I remember Carter putting a sweater on and telling me that the best day is behind me.
But I also remember Reagan saying, no pastels, fly the bold colors and row the shiny city on the hill.
Being a conservative doesn't mean you say no.
Being a conservative means you govern in a conservative way to make government better.
Under my speakership, we had the biggest cut in American history.
the largest rescission in American history.
We had welfare reform.
I mean, we have achieved, even in a short time, things that we've never been achieved before.
And you only had a four-seat majority.
I mean, after the removal of Speaker, I hope people understood how difficult it is,
because we went through those three weeks.
I mean, it's tough to govern, but you've got Democrats in the Senate and the presidency.
And when August came, they did a study of this Congress with the last Congress under Nancy Pelosi,
where the Democrats controlled all.
We passed more bills.
We had more become into law, even though the Democrats were in the majority.
Gates would stop us from doing the appropriation bills and complain, I haven't done them.
Then we had the most conservative stopgap bill that would secure our border, cut billions of dollars, and he wouldn't vote for it to keep government open and say, if government isn't open, it's your fault.
Look, I have worked too hard to get this majority to just walk away.
But the one thing I've always learned is I never give up.
I don't have to have the title of Speaker.
I don't have to have the title of Congressman.
I believe too much.
And our conservative values to ever give up on that.
And so I sit around and look at what I'm going to do in the future, but it's always going to be about working towards making America more prosper, providing people more individual liberties and freedoms.