live uninterrupted process on c-span, c-span.org, or doweling the free c-span now you app. -- video app. >> house republican leader kevin mccarthy on high gas prices in the gop's upcoming retreat in florida. this is under 20 minutes. prices and the g.o.p.'s upcome regular treat in florida. this is just under 20 minutes.

mr. mccarthy: yesterday the speaker made some remarkable statements. she said the democrats have done a great job, must take great pride in what they have done. we have a lot to brag about. i think they're so out of touch even from that statement itself. a recent polyshowed the american consumer sentiment has shrunk for the fifth time in the past six months. that's nearly 11-year low. of all the great things they have done. and for good reason. whether you're at the pump, the supermarket or virtually everywhere else americans are spending money, they are paying the highest prices in living memory. inflation, which is a tax on every single american, shows no signs of stopping. mr. powell said he expects

inflation to stay high for months. by the end of two years of president biden's presidency, families will be losing more than $6,000 in buying power because of inflation. that's over two years. so it's not only predictable, it was predicted. last year, house republicans, we warned reckless government spending would lead to higher prices. it wasn't just republicans who warned them. former democrats in the administration warned them as well. we warned anti-energy policies would lead to higher gas prices. democrats have responded with excuses. and finger pointing. and unserious solutions. as you can see from the chart. remember when they first blamed covid for it? then they said the inflation was transer to. remember that? and now it's putin's fault. i just filled out my bracket for the ncaa. we should fill out a bracket to

see who do they blame next. now they want to blame the oil companies. you know, americans aren't buying these excuses but they unfortunately are paying for them this incompetence extends beyond failures on the economy. look at the horrible situation on our southern border. this is something you really need to focus on. thousands upon thousands of people who are entering here illegally, not being tested, and the amount of drugs. just last week, you read the headlines. of some kids o.d. eeg in florida on spring break. they bought a drug that was laced with fentanyl. you read the number of the kids who have o.d.'d, two of them who did, didn't take the drug. they were giving c.p.r. to those who had.

but the fentanyl was so great they were o.d. eeg as well -- o.d.ing as well. the number one cause of death in america today between the ages of 18 and 45 is fentanyl. where do we get it? it comes from china, through the mexican border. we're watching what's happening on the news at the border. you would think it was video from ukraine. these cartels. shootouts. the trucks on fire. what's the response from the administration? not to secure the border. you've gone 12 consecutive months with more than 150,000 encounters. they'll no longer tell you how many people they're catching who are on the terrorist watch list. now the proposal is to end title 42. this is going to cause a gigantic influx, even greater than we have already seen. there's no plan by this administration and the democrats continue to block us at every

opportunity to secure the border. but another thing we should look at that just came forward, the democrats have politicized our intelligence committee. you've watched it year after year since adam schiff has become chair. no, he doesn't warn us about ukraine or afghanistan or what's happening around the world he tells you about politics. but the worst part of it is, you cannot trust what he tells you. that he lies to us. just watch what has happened. two years ago, schiff stated the emails found from hunter biden were all whole smear on joe biden comes from the kremlin. that's what the head of the intel said. but if you recall, jonathan tur lee had an article -- turley had an article written in 2020, after schiff said this to the american public. remember the election is in november.

but the director of national intelligence, john radcliffe said no, that's not the case. there's no intelligence out there to base it upon what adam schiff as the chair of the intel committee was telling the country. and what did we just find out yesterday from "the new york times"? yes, it is joe biden's laptop and yes adam schiff lied to us one more time. why is he still chair of the committee? and why is he even on why is he still chair of the committee? and why is he even on the committee? in a new congress, if it's a new majority, he will not be. you cannot make this committee political. you cannot use it as a position of a chairman to lie. and you should be focused on what the american people want you to be focused on around the world. how did you miss afghanistan collapsing? how did you miss ukraine? how have you missed every single part?

why? because you're out lying about an impeachment and everything else. that's not your job. that's not your role. we should be able to trust the chair of the intel committee to be honest with the american public regardless of what , political realm is in. with that, i'll take questions. how are you feeling? reporter: feeling good. mr. mccarthy: do you want to join the pool? who do you think they blame next? reporter: i don't know. you tell me. mr. mccarthy: it'll be somebody. reporter: one of your colleagues, madison cawthorn, called president zelenskyy a thug and is also accused of pushing misinformation. do you support him and do you support his reelection? mr. mccarthy: madison is wrong. if there's any thug in this world, it's putin. you just watched putin with russia, directing russia, bomb a maternity ward. we watched yesterday in a theater that's identified in the

front and back from the air that you're housing children. bombed. this is atrocious. this is wrong. this is the aggressor. this is the one that needs to end this war. this is the one that everybody should unite against. reporter: do you support his re-election? mr. mccarthy: yes. reporter: you mentioned democrats are blaming oil companies for the rise in gas prices. the chair of the energy and commerce committee has written letters to exxon, chevron, bp and several other oil and gas executives. their argument is that the price of oil, the barrel price has gone below $100, but gas prices remain over $4 per gallon nationally. do you believe there's any merit to that argument that oil companies are not giving the breaks to consumers? representative mccarthy: it just

gives to go to show how they don't understand the industry. things don't change overnight. you've got to produce the oil. you sell the oil. you have to refine the oil. and you pass it through. when the democrats proposed, you first had the democrats who led the party, joe biden, in his campaign for president, said he would eliminate the production of crude. you then had on the very first day when he got into office, ending a pipeline. so, you add transportation to that. inflation goes up, if you can't move it by a pipeline, you've got to put it in a truck or you've got to put it in a tanker if you bring it from somewhere else. that costs a lot more. you can't get things off the port so they raise the price , themselves. secondly, when they called in all the c.e.o.'s, do you know what their number-one question was? will they pledge to produce less? so if they took the advice of why they were called in, why they had to swear in under oath

and the questioning from the majority party, will you promise to produce less like europe? , and where is europe today? so now they want to turn around and blame them? when you shut in a well, you can't turn it right back on. it's not a light switch. when you go after and you hold a permit because you're building an l.n.g. export plant, you're not going to go produce more and make the investment in until you have the ability to send it out. well they're sitting on them. , there's no reason why. when you go after not a committee that you would think as an energy committee, but a financial services committee, and you ask the financial markets, will you pledge not to loan money to the energy industry, then you don't have the capital. what does the majority turn around?

these leases are not being moved. do you understand the market? you get a lease, it takes you three to seven years to develop it. and there's no guarantee there's oil and gas underneath it. but then you go to your banker to try to get the capital to go, but the majority committee is going after your capital, not to loan you the money. i've never seen anything like this. they -- they made their platform to put the oil industry out of business in america and increase the business of russia, iran and venezuela. they have sent letters, the democrat party, schumer, the president, and begged opec to produce more. they have sent the oil out of the spur, the strategic petroleum reserve, but they never turned around and asked american companies to produce more and produce more jobs. if the premise of what they care most about is the environment, they should embrace the american companies. american natural gas is 41%

cleaner than russian natural gas. it's their entire party that's been doing it. i live in california. i come from a district that happens, should be very proud about the energy we produce. we are one or two in solar, top four in wind, number one in california when it comes to oil. we have hydro. we have all the above. what america would want. but when gavin newsome cam into -- came into office, he used executived orers to shut down the ability to lease. and the one thing you have to understand if you understand the industry every day that you're , -- every day that you pump, you're depleting. so you have to do something to discover more. that takes investment. but they go after the capital where you can't. you have to do something to get the core open. you either steam it, frack it, but they've gone after those companies where you can't frack, or others to try to put you out. , we produce 89,000 barrels a

day in california less because of gavin newsome. 20% decline. but you know who gained in all that? because you still provide the oil? putin. we now increased, we get 50,000 barrels a day from russia, instead of an american job with cleaner energy done in a more environmentally sound way because of policies of democrats. and they turn around and see the price is high. we have warned them about this time and again based upon their policies. last week, i showed you the video. well, for every day biden has been in office, and every time he took an action that was going to harm the energy industry, we showed you the prediction of what would happen. well that day has come. , i'm sorry, they're out of excuses. every action they have taken has put us in this place. yes.

reporter: they had to pull their covid relief last week. mr. mccarthy: brilliant move on their part. reporter: what's your view on that? representative mccarthy: there's certain of things you need to deal with covid. and the unique part of it, there's plenty of money already out there, already appropriated. more than $300 billion. you don't need $300 billion worth of new covid items. they even admit that. the money is already appropriated and hasn't been spent. that's where they should use it. the challenge is, the progressives and socialist in the party only want to spend more. so they created the problem , themselves and they created an issue that they're going to have hard time solving. reporter: last year, you said republican were more united than ever, and then the whole fallout, change started to

happen during that retreat. what are we going to see this year? mr. mccarthy: won't see any fallout now. reporter: following up on monday's question. representative mccarthy: what was his question? reporter: his question was about madison cawthorn calling president zelenskyy a thug. 15 republicans voted against sanctions last week. one of your members has a twitter thread on what she referred to as nato nazis. are you worried a small group of value of vocal, right-wing members with large platforms will overwhelm the support for ukraine? mr. mccarthy: no. next question. reporter: also, all of them said they were concerned about a position in the sanctions portion of the bill that would allow the president -- mr. mccarthy: did anyone report it that way? ok. his question didn't align that way. you did even ask about zelenskyy.

reporter: they were concerned about the sanctions portion. they thought it would allow the president to sanction any form -- any foreign person deemed complicit. and congresswoman boebert said she was afraid it would cause people who uphold traditional values to be punished. do you share those concerns? representative mccarthy: i felt better protected and how the bill went. they had legitimate argument that they made, so it wasn't about russia. it was about what would be done on a different issue. i think the reporting on it should be clear. reporter: [indiscernible] representative mccarthy: i haven't. he's been in california, i have been here. reporter: have you followed the trial? mr. mccarthy: i saw a report earlier. are you going to brief me on it? yes. reporter: for the next week, given that the former president is less than 300 miles from

where this event will take place. will we see him there? mr. mccarthy: he's going to be in dallas doing an event for us there. this retreat, for those who are coming, i hope you have a good time, is really focused just on our policies. many of you remember last year, we put all our members into different task forces. going out to the public, listen, bringing in different experts, walking through. we've been narrowing. you saw some of our policy gets rolled out like the parents bill of rights, securing the border. our members have not just been working on those task forces but , we're doing conferences where everybody is invited on different topics, making america energy independent, garrett graves' committee as well. so we're going to narrow those , down so it's focused mainly if you look at our agenda, member'' interaction together. unfortunately, in the democratic caucus, the majority caucus, i listened to their conference chair say the other day, very interesting, that gas prices have never come up in their conference.

i don't know what they're talking about. i know they have some interesting entertainment at their retreat. our retreat is going to be focused on policy, not entertainment. thank you all. hope you enjoy the retreat. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2022] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ >> c-span's washington journal. every day, we take your calls live on the air on the news of the day and we discussed policy issues that impact you. coming up saturday morning, jamie frye president and ceo of radio free europe radio liberty on the russia ukraine conference and the organization's role in providing information about the work. then, a veteran journalist, cohost of the world affairs podcast, talks about his program and recent episodes on the russia-ukraine conflict. what washington journal live at 7:00 eastern saturday morning on

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