Congressman Scott Perry (R-PA-10), told the Todd Starnes Show that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy does not have the votes necessary to become the next Speaker of the House.
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“Todd, you understand tactics and strategy; everybody and everything in Washington, D.C. is about counting the numbers or counting the money. So I can assure you that now, Kevin McCarthy does not have the votes needed to become speaker,” Perry said.
His comments come only weeks after the midterm elections and days after the Georgia runoff in which Republicans lost key races across the country in all races.
The bottom line is, “We’re all tired of losing.” Perry stated.
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“We can’t have the same people under the same conditions doing the same things and expecting a different outcome. Something has to change there. Either the conditions, the people, or the circumstances. Something has to change.”
Perry told Starnes right now Kevin McCarthy does not have the votes to become Speaker of the House, and he won’t have the votes unless he agrees to make some changes.
LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW BELOW:
The following is a rush transcript from the Todd Starnes Show, which airs daily from noon – 3:00 p.m. EST.
TODD STARNES: [00:41:39] We want to get to your calls, but I want to go to the Patriot Mobile Newsmaker Line we’re honored to have with us from the great commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He is the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, Congressman Scott Perry. Congressman, thanks for coming on the show today. [00:41:40][1.7]
CONGRESSMAN SCOTT PERRY (R-PA-10): [00:41:53] Absolutely, Todd, and great to be with you. I would say this. I just listened to the conversation that you played. Look, Chuck Schumer has been wildly successful in the Senate. And he’s being rewarded for it in the House. The Democrats exceeded their expectations. But let’s look at the environment that we had to run in. But at every single level, there’s never been a more favorable environment in your lifetime to run as a Republican. Democrats overperformed their expectations. What did they do? They changed their entire leadership team because it still wasn’t enough. Now, on our side, I guess we can’t be bothered to listen to what Albert Einstein said. He said doing the same things and expecting different outcomes is the definition of insanity. So we have the same people under the same conditions doing the same things. And what do we think is going to change? I struggle with it. You know what we have to do, quite honestly, Todd, I think, is divorce ourselves. You know this is business. So, yeah, we like Ronna. She’s a nice lady. I’m not out here to trash or anything like that. But. But we have to have results in corporations. There are probably many nice people, but stockholders and shareholders demand results. They don’t care if you’re going to go golfing with them. What they care about is if you’re going to increase the value of their portfolio because they invested in you and your company because they believed you were going to increase the value of their portfolio. Unfortunately, we haven’t increased the value of our portfolio, as far as I can tell. [00:43:07][74.5]
TODD STARNES: [00:43:30] Yeah, I haven’t, I haven’t either. Congressman. And I’m telling you, Laura Ingraham, I think she summed it up very well last night. She said she was pissed. And I got to tell you, I am, too. And a lot of my listeners are just angry. They’re tired of losing. [00:43:43][13.1]
CONGRESSMAN SCOTT PERRY (R-PA-10): [00:43:45] Yeah. We’re all tired of losing. And I would say this as well. Where? Where we picked up. We picked up in New York. Thank you, Lee Zeldin, for running a campaign in difficult conditions. But, you know, he probably would have won had all the New Yorkers that traditionally could have voted for him hadn’t moved to Florida. You had Florida. That’s Ron DeSantis. But other than that, it was down to each individual candidate. If you have good candidates, you can win even in tough seats. But here’s what we were missing, Todd. In my opinion, any overall messaging tied to results from Mitch McConnell and leadership in the House that there was no messaging and if there was, it came very late in the cycle. We were already voting in Pennsylvania when we got the message of what Republicans are for. We squandered two years and multiple leverage opportunities to show what we would do if we had authority. We squandered those opportunities. We didn’t get any gains yet. We said to people, well, come out and vote for us. Here’s what they did. Todd, they said, look, the Democrats and the left are destroying the country. I can’t vote for them. These guys aren’t much better, but I can’t vote for those other guys. There was no enthusiasm because none was earned. [00:44:55][70.6]
TODD STARNES: [00:44:56] It seems to me, Congressman, and I think the Georgia race encapsulates the broader issue here of what’s happening. We had a candidate problem there, and I was pretty open about that early on when they rolled Herschel out. It should have been done differently to address all of the skeletons in the closet instead of the daily drip we got in the media. But beyond that, the messaging, like you just said, was all over the place where they’re talking about kale chips. That was Senator John Kennedy trying to make some point. They were talking about all sorts of stuff other than the issues impacting people at their homes. But again, despite all of that, he did well. And you have to wonder, Congressman, if the establishment Republicans in Georgia had just gotten on board that campaign, would that have been enough to push Herschel Walker over the finish line? [00:45:49][52.2]
CONGRESSMAN SCOTT PERRY (R-PA-10): [00:45:50] Well, look, he was behind and ended up a couple of points, right? At the end of the thing, you look at how the campaign was run, which is certainly a factor. The candidate is indeed a factor. I think Herschel got better over time. But the spending, the resources, three, four, two, one. These are huge sums of money. You know, you’re right. You can’t, as a candidate, think that the truth will not come out. The truth, the information, the skeletons, whatever you want to call them, will come out. Just resign yourself to it. The best thing to do. Get it out early. Deal with it and then move on. But if you think you’re just going to keep hiding it and run from it, you’re a fool. And that’s why candidate selection is important. We have to have look; these are high-stakes races. You know, I believe that the nationalization of Senate races has destroyed, you know, our ability to pick the right senators from our states. That’s another topic. But we have to select candidates that know how to do this. And, you know, look, we had a candidate in Pennsylvania, a nice person, capable, you know, in many areas. But you don’t go on the television talking about crudités. People in Pennsylvania that don’t live on the main line in Philadelphia don’t understand what you’re talking about. If you say vegetable tree, they get it, but you don’t. You shouldn’t be told that if you have to be told, there’s a problem. [00:46:36][46.6]
TODD STARNES: [00:47:13] So, Ronna has got to go. And again, I’m sure a very nice person. We’ve always, but she’s been cordial to us. But she’s got to go. We need new leadership. Where do you stand on Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House? [00:47:26][12.8]
CONGRESSMAN SCOTT PERRY (R-PA-10): [00:47:27] We are now trying to find out if he will support the things that need to change. Again, we can’t have the same people under the same conditions doing the same things and expecting a different outcome. Something has to change there. Either the conditions, the people, or the circumstances. Something has to change. That’s what I can say there. We’ve got some time left on the runway before we take off on January 3rd. But if something doesn’t change there, you’ll see things that haven’t been seen in America for about 100 years. [00:47:49][21.9]
TODD STARNES: [00:47:58] Now you’ve got folks out there, Mark Levin, the talk radio host, are just saying horrible things about Andy Biggs, basically accusing him of not even being a conservative. And others are saying the House Freedom Caucus will hand the speakership to Liz Cheney. How do you respond to these, you know, this hate that’s being directed at you guys? [00:48:19][21.0]
CONGRESSMAN SCOTT PERRY (R-PA-10): [00:48:21] This is how I respond. The forces within Washington, D.C., are wedded and invested in the status quo. And what they are trying to do, and sometimes successfully, is put the fear that somehow Democrats are going to be elected, Democrats going to be elected speaker. Todd, the only way that happens, there’s only when there was only one way that can happen, is if Republicans vote for a Democrat. Now, they put that story out there over and over again. Some people pick it up and talk about it, but no one puts names and faces the claim. So I asked there was one guy whose story was written about one representative that he would work with Democrats, and they asked him, are you going to vote for a Democrat for a speaker? He said, Absolutely not. I don’t like what you’re doing, but I never vote for a Democrat. It’s just using fear to try and make sure that the establishment and the status quo remain. It is unacceptable. It is unsustainable. [00:49:15][53.5]
TODD STARNES: [00:49:16] And even if that were true, that would be the proof that that would be the last line. I mean, that’s it. You know, again, that you would have Republicans voting with Democrats. But again, Congressman, you guys are very effective, and that’s why they’re coming after the House Freedom Caucus. [00:49:33][17.3]
CONGRESSMAN SCOTT PERRY (R-PA-10): [00:49:35] Yeah. Look, we were in good faith trying to change how things are done, so we don’t have the same outcome at the end of this year. And right now, no one that wants to be in leadership at the top has given us a vision of how they will do that. It trusts me; it’s essentially voted for me now and trusts that we will do these things in the future. Todd, We have played that game over and over again. We, you know, in my time, we’ve added, I don’t know, $14 trillion or more in debt during the same period of time where I heard the same rhetoric, whether it was John Boehner or Paul Ryan, I’m sorry, the American people can no longer sustain this. There’s got to be something that’s changed here in the equation, or we’re going to keep coming up with the same outcome. And if the Freedom Caucus is the only one willing to do the hard work to save the Republic, so be it. The Lord sent us here to do this job. They didn’t say it would be easy or comfortable, but it has to be done. [00:50:33][57.4]
TODD STARNES: [00:50:33] And Congressman, real quick here. Regarding the list of things that the demands that you guys have given to Kevin McCarthy, are you able to share any of those things that you want to see happen? [00:50:42][9.3]
CONGRESSMAN SCOTT PERRY (R-PA-10): [00:50:43] Well, I’m going to. I’m just going to share a couple of I think you’ll understand your audience will understand because some of this stuff is inside baseball, but accountability. So under Speaker Boehner, we had the motion to vacate the chair. That’s essential; you get enough votes, you don’t make the speaker, you can throw the speaker out. When Nancy Pelosi came in, she got rid of that. We have effectively enshrined that in the rules now in the Republican House. It is unacceptable. There must be accountability for the person that sits in the seat three steps from the presidency. That’s number one. Number two, earmarks. We have gotten rid of earmarks, and now they’re back. We cannot sustain this unbridled spending and the coercion that goes with earmarks. And then, finally, the ability to have single-subject bills. We see it right now with the national defense authorization being Christmas trade, with a bunch of items that have nothing to do with national defense because it’s a must-pass bill. And, of course, if you vote against it, you’re voting against the troops. But if you vote for it, you’re bankrupting the country and destroying our culture. That stuff must end. These seemed reasonable and easy. Ask for us and. And all members should be supportive of that. And if a leader can’t support those things, if the leaders are too insecure to support them, they may not be the leader. [00:51:57][73.2]
TODD STARNES: [00:51:57] And closing here, Congressman, if the vote were held today for McCarthy, how many no votes from the Freedom Caucus do you believe the that that that he would get? [00:52:06][8.8]
CONGRESSMAN SCOTT PERRY (R-PA-10): [00:52:07] Well, Todd, you understand tactics and strategy; everybody and everything in Washington, D.C. is about counting the numbers or counting the money. So I can assure you that now, Kevin McCarthy does not have the votes needed to become speaker. [00:52:22][14.5]
TODD STARNES: [00:52:23] All right. We’re going to leave it there, Congressman. We do appreciate your refreshing perspective on things here because you’re right. We got to have some changes. You’ve got our support, Congressman, and we appreciate you. [00:52:35][11.7]
CONGRESSMAN SCOTT PERRY (R-PA-10): [00:52:36] Thank you, sir. God bless you and your audience. [00:52:37][1.5]
TODD STARNES: [00:52:38] All right. Congressman Scott Perry, wow. You can tell he’s fired up, and I’m glad to hear somebody knows. [00:52:46][8.3]
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