For those of us on the Right who have doubted Kevin McCarthy, it is time to unite and back his speakership, while holding him accountable to his promised agenda of aggressive conservative action.
Though I have been public and prolific in my prior criticisms of the House GOP leader, three compelling reasons now convince me to advocate for him.
First and foremost, McCarthy won. He earned it.
Republicans will reclaim the speaker’s gavel from Nancy Pelosi thanks to the impressive campaign apparatus McCarthy built. In fact, during the last two election cycles, when Republicans added 14 and 9 House seats respectively, McCarthy led the efforts, from candidate recruitment to tireless campaigning to superior fundraising.
That last point is especially crucial, as some very high-quality Senate candidates, for example, lost because of gargantuan funding gaps with Democrats backed by big-money interests. But on the House side, McCarthy significantly out-raised Pelosi, by more than $80 million, in fact. Even those of us previously skeptical of McCarthy must recognize the hustle and organization of this massive success.
To the winners go the prizes, and McCarthy earned the top podium spot with this victory. Though he has recently been discussed in the same breath with Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell and RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, they did not win. McCarthy did.
Second, McCarthy has moved to the right. Before the midterms, he laid out an aggressive agenda that fully aligns with the populist and nationalist wings of our movement. For starters, he went to the U.S. border—something Joe Biden has never done as president—and announced hearings will commence there to showcase, to Democrats and to America, how Biden’s untenable and reckless border fiasco threatens the very sovereignty of our country.
Moreover, in my conversations with Rep. McCarthy, he pledged as speaker to use every leverage point possible to confront Biden on the border crisis. He wants to force the administration to finally start fulfilling its very first duty of protecting public order.
By Steve Cortes
