Exclusive — Speaker McCarthy in Video Special: ‘How the World Has Changed’ in New GOP Majority in House, ‘I’ll Never Give Up’

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told Breitbart News exclusively that House Republicans have already changed the way Washington works in their short time in the majority during a long form video interview in the Speaker’s ceremonial office in the U.S. Capitol.

The interview, the latest installment of the in-depth On the Hill video series from Breitbart News, was taped in mid-March just after McCarthy released some security tapes from the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol to then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson. The last time McCarthy sat down with Breitbart News for an in-depth video interview like this was a year before the 2022 midterm elections when he was the House Minority Leader, before the GOP won the majority — and before he won the Speaker’s gavel — during which Breitbart News interviewed him in a bar on Capitol Hill.

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“A lot changed from last time when we were sitting in a bar and now we’re in the Speaker’s ceremonial office in the Capitol,” McCarthy told Breitbart News, noting that America now has a “new House Republican majority that’s going to turn this country around.”

McCarthy survived a brutal first week of this new Congress, and 15 straight ballots, before he eventually won the gavel and became the nation’s 55th Speaker of the House. Asked about the speakership election, McCarthy said that while it was tough it shows he will “never give up.” He also said he believes it brought House Republicans closer together to set the stage for a series of victories that they have been quickly piling up this year.

“Look I think it’s something you probably wouldn’t want to have happen, but I think it probably brought us closer together,” McCarthy said. “My father always told me it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. If you watched me through it, I think the one thing the American people should take away from it it’s that I’ll never give up. I think we’re stronger for it in the end. But look, it’s an honor to have you back. This whole [thing] changes, right? Here you are sitting in the Speaker’s ceremonial office and when the Democrats were in power they didn’t even let Breitbart have credentials as a press organization. How the world has changed.”

In his first special with Breitbart News more than a year ago back in that Capitol Hill barroom, McCarthy promised to strip Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) off the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HSPCI) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) off the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He has accomplished those objectives already.

“Promises made, promises kept,” McCarthy said when asked about that.

But that is hardly the only thing McCarthy is proud of. He noted that he has opened government back up — by eliminating proxy voting, allowing open rules on some bills to let any members offer any amendments, and letting the public access House office buildings again. Democrats had blocked Americans from being able to visit congressional offices — that practice is over now and the buildings are open for the public again.

“It’s really important for the American public to see what this new Congress is doing,” McCarthy said. “Some of it is smaller things of it. The first thing is we opened the House back up to the public. This is the people’s House, so they can come and see it. Secondly is something we’ve created on this floor that hasn’t happened in seven years. This didn’t happen one time under Paul Ryan, or any times under Nancy Pelosi, where you actually had an open rule on the floor where any member can bring up an amendment—a much more open process where the idea can win at the end of the day. Bills now have to go through committee. You know the thing that I really enjoy? I took away proxy voting, so members of Congress actually have to show up for work to do their job to be the voice for their districts, to be in committees. I think at the end of the day you’re going to see things work better.”\

McCarthy also, in the interest of transparency, released some of the January 6 surveillance tapes to Carlson. He also pledged in this interview a full public release of them, and offered to news organizations the ability to come in and view them while Capitol Hill police redact anything that requires redaction for security reasons. That part of the interview was published back in March, immediately after it was taped.

Other clips from this interview already published include one where McCarthy laid out his terms for debt ceiling negotiations with Democrat President Joe Biden and the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate. Since then, House Republicans secured arguably their biggest win so far this year last week when they passed a debt ceiling proposal out of the House—thereby forcing the hands of Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer who have thus far refused to negotiate. Several Democrats in both chambers have turned on Biden and Schumer, and are calling on them to sit down with McCarthy and negotiate on the debt ceiling. McCarthy, in this interview, explained the House GOP position is that they will not raise taxes and that there need to be serious spending cuts to rein in government growth—all while not touching Medicare or Social Security. The House GOP plan, which passed 217-215 out of the House last week, reflects that vision that McCarthy first laid out to Breitbart News.

In this exclusive interview, McCarthy also went in-depth on a number of other issues such as immigration, China, and leftist Big Tech censorship efforts.

On Big Tech and censorship, McCarthy was explicitly clear that he finds it “very concerning” that many companies and organizations such as NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) have been receiving taxpayer dollars through a variety of channels. House Republicans, he noted, have already cut off some of those taxpayer funding streams — and have plans to axe more of it. McCarthy hammered his Senate counterpart, Schumer, for pushing for censorship of conservatives, noting that it fits with a long line of leftist efforts to profess shutting down debate. “With social media, what they’ve been doing to conservatives for a long time — that’s why Schumer professes this,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy specifically thanked Breitbart News for exposing Big Tech censorship and being one of the first publications to speak up about it.

“Before we begin I have to thank you Matt and Breitbart because you have been on the forefront of this because you were one of the first entities that felt this as well,” McCarthy said. “You watched even your feed of stories first to be claimed weren’t true and then to say they need to censor them and then social media drop it and not let people find it.”

McCarthy highlighted the work of several congressional committees, and particularly the House Judiciary Committee, in exposing Big Tech censorship — and the relationship between Big Tech and government.

“So what we have done in this new majority is make sure we have accountability,” McCarthy said. “It’s one of those things we talked about more than a year ago at that bar. What could we do to social media? What could we [do] to make sure that the fairness was brought in? Well, our committees have oversight but we also created a select committee on the weaponization sitting inside Judiciary where Jim Jordan’s (R-OH) a part of. We’ve watched what’s transpired since that time. The more information we’ve now learned from Twitter that has now come forward. You’re going to find here in Congress some eye-opening hearings, especially the work we’ve been doing and some whistleblowers who came forth. I think America is going to be shocked by how much government was doing working in these—using these government agencies with these private companies to go after conservatives, to censor their voice, to censor what people can see. That has all got to stop. We believe in a free market and a free market of ideas. You’re going to find not only are we going to hold them accountable, we’re going to be able to use that basis to know legislatively what can we do that they can never do this again.”

McCarthy said, too, that the work of Elon Musk — the new CEO of Twitter — through releasing the Twitter Files has been helpful in getting the ball rolling with congressional investigations. But he added that it takes time to build these cases because Republicans are taking on majorly powerful government agencies connected to and working hand-in-hand with similarly powerful corporate interests.

“You’re going to find a number of hearings but this is the one thing all your viewers and readers have to understand,” McCarthy said. “It’s not going to be just next week. What you want to do is make sure you get all the information so you might not find the big names coming into the hearing at the beginning because what you want to do is learn everything you can before you bring them in. A lot of this gets brought in—people won’t see the hearings, depositions, and others—to be able to build the case that we need to be able to hold people accountable. But I’ve been very impressed so far of what Jim Jordan and Jamie Comer has been doing as well on the Oversight Committee and to be frank a lot of the work of what Elon Musk has done—and I know a lot of people are trying to attack him now simply because he’s putting out the information that he’s learned. I just watched the FTC the other day going after Elon Musk, asking him what reporters did you allow to see this? Think about that. The Federal Trade Commission trying to go after a private company that provided information to a reporter. That’s censorship. That’s government trying to go after and shut down the ability for Elon Musk to bring the truth out. What’s interesting is if you look back at the bills the Democrats wanted to do where they said they were reforming social media, they were giving more power to the director of the FTC to be able to control these companies. That’s what’s wrong and I think people are going to be very interested and very excited what they see come forth in these hearings.”

McCarthy argues that the House Republicans’ oversight efforts have already produced some major fruits, including pressuring the Biden administration to release the Energy Department report that says the U.S. government believes COVID originated in the Wuhan lab.

“Think about it — we had to take a little bit longer to do the speakership,” McCarthy said when asked about the timeline for action on these probes. “So it took a little longer to do the committees, but the committees are up and running right now. Think of what has transpired just since January. Omar is off Foreign Affairs. Adam Schiff and Swalwell are off the Intel committees. Those were promises already kept. We said we’d create a weaponization [committee], we’d create a select committee on COVID and what has come forth? It’s only because of these committees now that you’re getting the truth out. Now the government’s coming forward and saying ‘yeah our information does tell us that it happened in Wuhan in China.’ Now we’re finding did Fauci keep it a secret? Did Fauci hold it back? There’s been some really bombshell information coming forth and you’re going to find this again and again. But the one thing I want to caution everybody is we’re doing the work and this government’s been fighting us. Remember that this administration doesn’t want to provide this information to us because they know that it’s kind of shocking the things we’re finding out.”

On the Big Tech front, McCarthy helped kill a Democrat-led effort last year to provide establishment media outlets an antitrust exemption to allow them to collectively bargain with Big Tech companies — something that would have effectively created media “cartels” — when his predecessor former Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried to insert the proposal into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The Speaker said that idea, called the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), is dead in this Congress and will not move through the House of Representatives. As Breitbart News reported last year, Pelosi had tried to slip it into the defense bill — and it was in there at the 11th hour — until McCarthy intervened and stripped it out. McCarthy told Breitbart News that kind of backroom dealing that will not be happening in the new House GOP majority — and he also ripped the Democrats’ omnibus bill last year for similar reasons noting that that type of behavior is something Republicans are “stopping.”

“As you see it’s not moving, and there’s a reason it’s not moving,” McCarthy said of the JCPA. “You watched where the last speaker tried to put it in a defense bill. It has nothing to do with defense — and she tried to do it in the last moments. I think no matter what bill it is it has to show the light of day, has to be germane, and we’ve actually changed the rules in the House for germaneness — that you can’t play these sneaky games like this. The American public hates that. They hate when they do those things, just like when the Democrats did that omnibus for $1.7 trillion in the last moment and they tucked things into that. So that is the part of Washington people hate and we’re stopping it.”

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi / Facebook

While the JCPA might be dead, efforts to censor conservatives are alive and well for now — and people trying to use the government and corporate power to do so are active too. “They’re in the administration. They’re in the Senate,” McCarthy said.

NewsGuard, an organization that has tried time and again to discredit and delegitimize conservative media outlets, is one that is absolutely in the crosshairs of House Republicans, McCarthy said. NewsGuard, as Breitbart News has reported, was hoping to use JCPA if it was not killed to censor conservatives more. NewsGuard has targeted Breitbart News, the Drudge Report, NewsMax, Fox News, and many more conservative media outlets. Asked about NewsGuard specifically, McCarthy said that House Republicans have a number of hearings planned to expose efforts of this institution.

“They say they want to see if it’s the truth or not,” McCarthy said. “But this is a liberal organization, funded by liberal groups trying to do this — trying to discredit conservative information. The one thing I firmly believe in, the freedom of the press. You have a right to deliver the news and people have a right to decide one way or another. But we cannot allow them to continue doing what they’re doing and you’re going to see within hearings we’re going to bring light to this.”

NewsGuard, as Breitbart News has reported, has received funding directly from American taxpayers, including a $750,000 Pentagon contract unearthed last year. Asked about that Pentagon contract specifically and more broadly any contracts that NewsGuard has been receiving from the federal government, McCarthy said he finds it “very concerning.” He said this is why Congress has oversight powers and said the House GOP majority should investigate NewsGuard on these matters.

“It’s very concerning to me,” McCarthy said. “Why do they have these contracts? What are they doing with them? Look this is always healthy — not to prejudge anything, you should have oversight. We should look at this. What are they doing? Why are they doing it? Do they have any preconceived notions or trying to weigh one way or another? It really comes down to fairness.”

NewsGuard is not the only censorship-promoting leftist entity that has received taxpayer money. GDI, another one, received tax dollars through an organization known as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), on whose board House GOP conference chairwoman Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) sits. When House Republicans became aware of the flow of tax dollars to GDI through NED, Stefanik moved to cut it off — something McCarthy celebrated.

“We were able to stop that,” McCarthy told Breitbart News, adding that this trend is disturbing. “We see this time and again. What’s happening here is through our hearings we’re discovering these entities that have been using taxpayer money for political purposes. Any time we find that, we try to stop that. This is something we were successful in by not even passing a bill but getting the information out, having a member serving on that committee raising the issue, and stopping it.”

McCarthy again thanked Breitbart News for exposing lots of these contracts and details about these censorship promoters.

“I do need to thank you because one thing Breitbart has done has brought light to this, has brought information about this, and really when people see it it really — sunshine cleans up so much,” McCarthy said.

Asked about another Pentagon contracting issue with Big Tech giants, specifically a Breitbart News investigation published earlier this year into the JEDI cloud computing contract with Amazon, McCarthy confirmed he has ordered several House Republicans to investigate that matter.

“I have a number of members who have been looking into this contract, how the contract was made,” McCarthy said. “Is there any illegal activity that was done within there? I think more of that will come to light.”

McCarthy also discussed his views on the quickly growing field of Artificial Intelligence, telling Breitbart News that while it could have some good uses it could also be used for nefarious reasons — and warning that “thoughtful” balance is needed.

“Artificial intelligence could have a lot of great benefits — it could help us detecting cancer earlier, better detection with eyes,” McCarthy said. “It could help us solve health issues, it could help us do other things. It could eliminate certain jobs. So it has to be done in a thoughtful way. But whichever country capitalizes on AI or Quantum first has an advantage over the other. So it’s just like anything else. It could be used for good, and it could be used for some bad things too. So, I think it’s thoughtful about how we go about looking at it as well.”

Another major success from House Republicans this year is the passage of the Parents Bill of Rights. McCarthy’s interview came just after House Republicans introduced it, and just before they passed it through the House 213-208.

“You feel bad — you shouldn’t have to have a parents bill of rights in kids’ education,” McCarthy said. “But parents need to have a say in their kids’ education today. One, they should know what’s being taught in their kids’ schools. They should know if there’s some vandalism or some attack on another student. They should know where the money is being spent in there. So we unveiled the Parents Bill of Rights. What’s very interesting — we had a number of parents across this country come talk to us. One was a father. You’d recognize him from Loudoun County where his daughter was molested in the girls’ bathroom by a boy wearing a skirt. That boy had molested another girl before and they were never notified. We had a parent from Rhode Island, a mom who wanted to know the curriculum that’s being taught in the kindergarten because it was inappropriate. You know what she was told by the school board? You have to put it in writing. She put it in writing, and they still wouldn’t notice. So she put it in writing numerous times and then they sued her. We watched another parent come before us asking what the money was being spent on because their kid wasn’t getting an education. Well, you should know what that is. You should know what the curriculum is. You should know what’s in the library. You should have a say in that. If something happens, if a child is molested on the campus, all parents should know from that process as well.”

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Matt Perdie / Breitbart News

On China, McCarthy ripped Biden for allowing the now-infamous spy balloon to traverse the entire continental United States — from Montana to South Carolina — before finally shooting it down off the coast of Myrtle Beach.

Biden only shot it down, McCarthy said, “after it collected all the information and sent it back to China.”

McCarthy also said that Biden has not done anything to hold China accountable for anything. Asked what the Biden administration should be doing, McCarthy said Biden should call Chinese dictator Xi Jinping and tell him stop producing the chemicals used to make fentanyl.

“The first thing they should do is call President Xi and tell him to stop the chemicals that create fentanyl from coming to our country,” McCarthy said. “President Trump did that and it dropped. The second thing is you’ve got to have one policy with China. A thing that all your viewers should understand is we kept another promise in the Commitment to America. I said if we took the majority we could create a Select Committee on China. So we will no longer be dependent, be it in critical minerals, be it in our medical, be it in our food supply and others — buying up our farmland. We created a select committee of Republicans and Democrats that will look at not just from a security point of view but from technology, from agriculture, from critical minerals that we will no longer be dependent upon China for those, that we will create and bring those jobs back to America. I’m proud to say that’s up and running and I’m proud to say the way they’re performing — they just had a couple hearings, [I am] very impressed by it. You’ll be surprised at this: Even the Washington Post wrote an editorial so positive about it.”

McCarthy’s interview was taped before his meeting with Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen, but before news of his planned meeting with her in California came out. During the interview, McCarthy said he is certainly open to also visiting Taiwan—and the reason for the meeting being in California was simply because Tsai was visiting the United States.

“China will never tell me where I can go and not go,” McCarthy said. “So there’s an opportunity that there’ll be a day that I go and when I visit in Taiwan. But the Taiwanese president, she’s coming to America. I would like to see her when she’s here as well.”

“Yeah, I think there’s a good opportunity there could be a visit down the road,” he added. “One doesn’t preclude the other. If she’s in our country — that’s how you build stronger relations.”

McCarthy also lit into the Biden Administration for withholding the report that demonstrates U.S. authorities believe that COVID came from the lab in Wuhan. He said Democrats in Congress, who had majorities the past two years in both the House and Senate, failed to do anything to expose these facts—and it was only after House Republicans took the majority and formed a select committee on COVID that this information came out.

“Why’d that take so long?” McCarthy asked. “Why was it when the Democrats had the majority that they didn’t have one hearing on the origins of COVID after it killed millions of people across this country? Why did this information just now come forward after Republicans took the majority and they had the power of subpoena and they created a select committee on COVID? These are the successes and this is also another thing we promised in the Commitment to America.”

McCarthy said China has caused “damage to all these nations” worldwide with COVID and suggested that Congress could create a private right of action to allow Americans to sue the Chinese Communist Party for damage China caused with COVID in much the same way that Congress opened up lawsuits against the Saudis in the wake of 9/11. That effort, which passed with supermajorities in both the House and Senate during now former President Barack Obama’s administration, was vetoed by Obama — but Congress overrode his veto. While such a proposal has not started moving on China yet in Congress, the fact that the Speaker of the House is openly floating it is not good news for Beijing.

“There is a number of things we could do. Remember what happened after 9/11? You had the ability, when Congress changed the law, that victims could sue,” McCarthy said. “That’s an element we can do too. Hold people accountable and have consequences for their actions. If it came from China which every report now shows, and from the lab, how did it get created? Where did the gain-of-function — where was the funding? Did Fauci participate? Is there information there? Was there studies done to keep us away from finding where it was created? All this information has to come forward. What you’ll find what we did in the House is we declassified the information on COVID so everybody can see it in all these nations. Why would you hold that back? You want to know where it originated from, how did it get created, and what’s going forward? That’s another promise we made before the election.”

McCarthy also said that House Republicans are investigating efforts by China to purchase U.S. farmland and other critical resources, noting that the House’s bipartisan select committee on China is investigating that matter.

“This is one of the issues we’re bringing up in our select committee,” McCarthy said. “This is why I appointed like Ashley Hinson, Newhouse as well — very concerned about the farmland they’re purchasing and why they’re purchasing it. But you also have to look, they purchased into our meat processing and there’s only a few of those. What the American people have to understand is the number of places and the number of industries that China has come in and tried to take a controlling interest in — they control 90 percent of the critical minerals but they control 95 percent of the processing of critical minerals. The amount of medication, medical supplies, and now going into food processing in America. What about seed companies? What about AG firms? You know, the security of food, many times Americans take for granted. But when they’re pushing out American farmers, when they’re buying the farmland, and this farmland right next to a military base. Why would they be doing that? Could it be another reason why they put drones over our military bases and these balloons to try to see what we’re doing? I think that’s wrong and that’s why we’re going to take a clear look at this and come up with legislation of how to stop it.”

McCarthy said too that he has a “real concern” with TikTok, the Chinese-backed viral video app. Democrats in Congress late last year caved to Republican efforts to ban TikTok on federal government devices after a number of GOP governors banned the app on state government devices nationwide. Some Democrat governors joined in the effort too, but at this point TikTok is still available to the general public.

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“I think every parent, and everybody who uses it — think about this,” McCarthy said when asked if TikTok should be outright banned in America. “Is TikTok used the same way in America as it’s used in China? The answer is no. In China, they limit the amount of time children can be on it. What children see in China is different too. It’s an educational tool for them, but that’s not in America. So, why is that? And is that really the best use of it? So, and also, what data is China collecting from the users on TikTok themselves? You watch what President Xi has done now that he’s changed the Constitution, he’s empowered the CCP, the Communist Party, more into businesses, more into industry, and he’s also said he wants to take Taiwan by a certain timeframe. He’s also made real comments against America. Remember, where does fentanyl come from? So I would be very concerned. I don’t have TikTok on my phone — never have had it on my phone. I would tell others, if you’re a parent or others, I wouldn’t allow my kids to have TikTok on their phone. I would be really concerned about the ramifications of having it.”

Chinese Communist Party influence operations are also something that McCarthy said Republicans in Congress are very concerned about, noting that the Chinese are far more sophisticated on this front than any previous American adversary. He used the example of Swalwell, who he removed from the Intelligence Committee, as an example of how the Chinese can get to anyone in the United States—and that they are targeting potential future lawmakers long before they ever even get close to the U.S. Congress. In fact, in Swalwell’s case, he met Chinese spy Fang Fang when he was a city councilman — and he met her on a college campus.

“Our universities, sending their students here, bribing our professors. Confucius. Think about where Swalwell met this Chinese spy Fang Fang,” McCarthy said. “He met her at the college campus. Think about Dianne Feinstein’s driver for 10 years was a Chinese spy. Think about when the Chinese spy met Eric Swalwell. He wasn’t a congressman. He was a city councilman. Do you know how expensive it is to create a spy organization to create a relationship with someone for the city council? But they built this relationship with city council. She helps him run for Congress. When he gets to Congress, she puts interns in his office. He gets on the Intel Committee, the most difficult committee to get on especially in the minority, in like his second term. You know what? The FBI came before us not when he was just a member of Congress, but the moment he was on Intel. They went to the leadership and said ‘you have a problem. You have a member that has a close relationship with a Chinese spy.’ You know what that Chinese spy did? Left the country. How did she know? The real concern is why would you leave Swalwell on Intel knowing that? This Nancy Pelosi that you call a very effective Speaker did that. And on Intel you get the most secure information on America and other countries and other leaders. What’s interesting is why would they be so concerned about Swalwell? Swalwell, if he wasn’t a member of Congress, could not get a security clearance to work for a company. But America under Pelosi was giving him the biggest security clearance in the world by letting him stay on there. That’s why — look, it’s not a high bar, but I told everybody on Intel that if anybody has a relationship with any spy from any other country you’re not on Intel no ifs, ands, or buts.”

McCarthy said if they can get to Swalwell that early in his career, “they can get to anybody.”

“They’re investing in making that happen,” McCarthy said.

Asked if the U.S. should ban Chinese student visas altogether to stop it, McCarthy said that the U.S. needs much stricter vetting to look at who exactly is coming into the United States and why.

“You should always look twice at who’s coming in,” McCarthy said. “You need to be watching what they’re doing in these universities. These universities I’m concerned with. When you look at Penn, why did the Chinese spend more than $30 million in a Biden group in a university? Why did they fund that? More so than any other university? Our Secretary of State worked for the Biden think tank there. We have ambassadors that have come out of that. We’ve now found that there was classified information there. This is really concerning to a lot of people… Answers, we need them.”

In McCarthy’s previous video special with Breitbart News, the now-Speaker of the House and then Minority Leader pledged that if he became Speaker there would not be consideration of any legislation that grants amnesty — legal status — to any illegal alien in America. McCarthy in this interview confirmed that pledge.

“Yeah,” McCarthy said when asked if that promise still applies to no consideration of any amnesty legislation.

“We have to secure our border,” McCarthy said. “What has happened under this administration — we’ve never seen so many people just come clear across this border. But you also have fentanyl. You have people on the terrorist watch list, people from 160 different countries. I’ve been down there. I’ve toured in numerous times. We’ve watched the difficulty that is happening. So what we’re doing now as the Democrats try to ignore it, we’re having hearings at the border so Democrats can no longer ignore it.”

McCarthy has regularly visited the border as Speaker and told Breitbart News some inside details of a recent trip he took to Tucson, Arizona.

“Numerous times, taking numerous to the border with us — and I’ll tell you I just recently came back from Tucson, Arizona,” McCarthy said. “This is a different part of the border than other parts. It’s more rugged. The Sinaloa cartel controls this. Seventy-one percent of everyone who comes across that border is a single male. So it’s not family. Every single one who comes across that border only gets through after paying the cartel. Every single one of them is wearing the same thing: a camouflaged uniform. Why would you dress full in camouflage coming across? On their shoes they put rugs so you wouldn’t see the shoe prints. They don’t run up to a border agent when they find them — they scatter. Why? Because they don’t want to get caught. The highest percentage of got-aways come from there. You know what? We had these balloons that would go up and allow us to be able to see and monitor and be able to get the data for the number of got-aways. You know what this administration just did? Cut it in half. So they want to say that oh the numbers are dropping. No, the numbers aren’t dropping. They’re dropping the technology so we won’t know how many people are coming across. So we’re going to produce a border security bill — we’re working on it now — that will secure our border. That’s the very first thing we have to do before we do anything else.”

As Breitbart News previously reported, McCarthy said in this interview he was open to using U.S. military assets to target the Mexican drug cartels — and he endorsed formally labeling the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

McCarthy also told Breitbart News during this interview that he is open to considering impeachment proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

“If you watch the hearings, we want to know why the border is not secure,” McCarthy said. “Mayorkas has lied to the American public saying it is secure. You will see we will hold him accountable. What we will do is different than everybody else. We will get all the information as we move forward.”

“The one thing I’ve always said is we’re not like Democrats; we don’t do impeachment just for political purposes,” McCarthy added. “But if something rises to that occasion — that’s why we will do all the homework on what has transpired down here and if that reaches to an impeachment inquiry, we’ll follow through with that.”