Speaking to reporters for the first time since being ousted as House speaker, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) took aim at his enemies in a rambling, nearly hourlong news conference Tuesday evening.
McCarthy opened with a quote he attributed to President Lincoln: “I’m an optimist because I don’t see any other way.”
The ex-speaker’s comments were peppered with other upbeat cliches.
“I wouldn’t change a thing,” he claimed.
“Doing the right thing isn’t always easy, but it is necessary,” he added. He called his time as the 55th speaker of the House — which lasted 269 days — “one of the greatest honors.”
He assured reporters that he has no regrets. “I don’t regret standing up for choosing governance over grievance,” McCarthy said. “I do not regret negotiating, our government is designed to find compromise. I don’t regret my efforts to build coalitions and find solutions. I was raised to solve problems not create them. So I may have lost the vote today, but as I walk out of this chamber, I feel fortunate to have served the American people.”
After recounting his past growing up in Bakersfield, running a sandwich shop and becoming the first in his family to graduate from college, McCarthy addressed his defeat at the hands of House Democrats and a small group of GOP rebels.
On who will succeed him as speaker
The former speaker put to rest the question of whether he would run again for the position he just lost, saying he would not. Asked whether he would consider resigning from the House, McCarthy said, “I haven’t thought about that.”
“What advice do you have for the next speaker?” a reporter asked.
“Change the rules,” McCarthy said, to a roomful of laughter.
What he said about his nemesis
McCarthy criticized Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican who forced the vote to oust him.
“You all know Matt Gaetz. You know it was personal,” McCarthy said to reporters, growing impassioned. “It had nothing to do about spending. … Everything he accused somebody of, he was doing. It all was about getting attention from you.’’
Gaetz is reportedly the target of a secretive House Ethics Committee investigation over reports of sexual and other misconduct. A separate Justice Department investigation concluded earlier this year without charges, according to Gaetz.
McCarthy noted that Gaetz sent out fundraising appeals celebrating his decision to push McCarthy out.
McCarthy said he confided in Pelosi
McCarthy said he confided in former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) over the trouble he had getting elected as speaker earlier this year. McCarthy faced steep opposition from hard-right members of his own party, including Gaetz. One of the concessions the conservatives asked was for a rule to have one person call for McCarthy’s ouster — a rule that ultimately led to his downfall.
“She said, ‘Just give it to them. I’ll always back you up,’” McCarthy recounted.
Pelosi’s spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment.
On conservatism
McCarthy’s ouster followed his Saturday deal with Democrats over a stopgap bill to continue funding the government, preventing a shutdown. Gaetz and other Republicans who voted with him cited that vote as the moment that broke their confidence in McCarthy.
McCarthy blasted the hard-right Republicans who voted against him, saying, “They are not conservatives.”
“If you were conservative, and you … vote against securing the border, you vote against cutting funding, this wasteful spending, and then you partner with all the Democrats,” McCarthy said. “That’s not a conservative.”
