democracy. >> next, house republican leaders criticizing january 6's first public hearing, calling it a political gamesmanship. kevin mccarthy led the 40-minute news conference which includes representative steve scalise, elise stefanik, and jim banks.

mr. mccarthy: i want to first apologize for being a few minutes late. i was on the floor asking for unanimous consent to move the supreme court security bill that was passed by the senate by 100 votes and it was denied. i know the speaker just had a press conference in here. i'm told she said nobody is of threat over the weekend. i don't know how she can say that knowing that you just captured a person who wanted to kill kavanaugh and his family. so was he not in any threat yesterday? is he not in any threat after schumer made his threats on the

supreme court? or jen psaki said it was the president's position to go to those homes? i have no idea why the democrats held that bill for one month. i have no idea. i think they might be playing politics. and speaking of that, speaker pelosi's select committee on january 6 is unlike any other committee in american history. in fact, it is the most political and least legitimate committee in american history. it is used -- it has used congressional subpoenas to attack republicans, violate due process, and infringe on the political speech of private citizens. it's actually been caught altering evidence, including the text messages of our ranking member jim jordan. it has permanently damaged the house and divided this country.

and let's be honest. it's a smokescreen for democrats to push their radical agenda. just in axios this week, the bat's internally. -- the battle's internally. they are talking about the real outcome what they want to achieve, abolish the electoral college. all the while that the democrats are ignoring really what is affecting the american people. the highest inflation in more than 40 years. record high gas prices. doubled since president biden has taken office. lack of baby formula. unsecured border. fentanyl coming across. now the number one killer of americans between the ages and -- ages of 18 and 45. now, let's be very clear. the violence at the capitol that day was wrong and we have repeatedly denounced it.

keeping the capitol safe is not the point of pelosi's illegitimate select committee. from the beginning, the select committee refused to investigate the real circumstances that led to the riot. including the lack of security around the capitol. they also ignored the left-wing mob violence which led to riots and loss of life across the country that summer. when house republicans proposed investigating these facts, as you remember on january 12, we put it to the floor and every single democrat voted no. when i sent pelosi a letter when she voted no, she did not respond for three months. and she jumped to create a select committee. not only that, she rejected the minority's picks to be on the

committee. that's going against 232 years of tradition in the house. you reject the minority to have a say in the committee. who did she reject? congressman jim banks. a distinguished afghanistan veteran. she rejected congressman jim jordan. ranking member, maybe soon to be chairman of the judiciary committee. now, why she disqualified these republicans. she appointed chairman thompson, radical democrats, who, to be clear, objected to the presidential electors in 2005. she appointed congressman

raskin. who also objected to the presidential electors in 2017. but let's not forget what else he said. he called for president trump's impeachment, be not during his -- impeachment, not during his term in office but when he was elected and being sworn in. and appointed congressman schiff. just saying that name should have been enough. we watched what schiff has done to this country. the years of lying about the russian hoax. the changing of evidence we found that he went in denying the hunter biden laptop. you know, our future rests on the ability of americans to trust our political system. to have safer streets, to have affordable food and gas and have confidence that their elected officials are listening to real concerns. now, democrats are using january 6 to avoid accountability.

for making the whole nation less safe. and less prosperous. you know it, you feel it, you see it every single day. every single day the food prices go up and along with the gas. not sure if we caught another individual coming across the border illegal that's on the terrorist watch list. not sure if there's anybody else that wants to come across illegal to try to assassinate the former president bush. not sure if the plane from australia bringing goat milk to try to feed the children of america. that's the america we have today. i don't see any primetime hearing set for gas price, for battling inflation, for feeding our children, for making the streets safer. you know, even in the hometown of the speaker, this tuesday,

they recalled their d.a. based upon the democratic policies of not upholding safe streets. you know how many republicans are registered in san francisco. 6.7%. but lo and behold, i'm not sure if using taxpayer money to hire a former abc executive who took his time to withhold information about epstein or if they're doing for their ice cream but i do know the american public will not be fooled. and i do know the republicans will not be deterred, that we'll continue to focus on the parts that america wants us to. to make america energy independent. to make our streets safe and our schools again. to secure our border. to know that america and the

next century will be ours. with that, even though speaker pelosi has rejected americans' ability to participate, we said we'd get to the bottom of this. we said we would not brush it under the rug and we have not. we continue to investigate. leading that which would be our ranking member on this committee, chairman jim banks, who is a veteran to afghanistan serves as the chair of our largest conference inside the republican conference and has continued to work on to make sure that this building will be safe and in the future this will never happen again. i give you jim banks. mr. banks: i thank the leader. and as he said, the american people know this select committee is already a fraud.

democrats -- as the leader said, they're trying to use this select committee as a trojan horse to abolish the electoral college, to intimidate president trump's aides, to block him from ever appearing on the ballot again, and to prevent his supporters from participating in american democracy. gas today in my hometown of columbia city, indiana, is $2.5 -- $5.25 a gallon. now is an hour-long made for tv special attacking president trump. americans aren't buying it. voters see that even after nearly two years of joe biden, the democrats still refuse to lead. they refuse to take responsibility for the serious economic difficulties that they have created and the democrats refuse to help the american people and families who are hurting because of their policies.

but the select committee is ignoring its most basic duty. the democrats aren't asking the simple questions what happened on january 6. before their investigation even started, speaker pelosi turned the select committee into an unprecedented sham. she blocked jim jordan and i to serve on the select committee. it's never happened before in american history. and no speaker in history has done something as partisan as that what speaker pelosi has done. why did she do it? she did it because she's afraid. speaker pelosi doesn't really want a real investigation into january 6. that's why her sergeant at arms refused to cooperate with a bipartisan senate committee investigation. she was afraid of what they would uncover. house republicans continue to conduct our own ad hoc investigation into january 6. our goal is to answer the

questions that this select committee is ignoring. questions that you're not going to hear about on the primetime special tonight. questions that must be answered to keep congress and the capitol police officers safe in the future. and here are the questions that you should be demanding answers from from the select committee members as well. first of all, how is it possible that the capitol police we now know was half staffed because of covid on january 6? second, why were our officers underequipped on that day? why were some officers forced to face down a riot without helmets or expired equipment? why were the capitol police officers never trained to handle a riot even after all the riots that were ongoing in washington, d.c., and our nation's capital in the summer of 2020? did speaker pelosi communicate with the house sergeant at arms on january 6 or in the days leading up to the riot?

why didn't the capitol police's intelligence unit raise the alarm about potential violence when they had intelligence going back weeks before january 6 that told them that something was going to happen? why did the f.b.i. deploy commando sequatico on january 3 with shoot to kill authority but failed to send the united states capitol police a single threat assessment or intelligence bulletin? was speaker pelosi involved in the decision to delay national guard assistance on january 6? those are serious and real questions that this committee refuses to even ask. speaker pelosi doesn't want to answer those questions because she knows that the answers to those questions leave a trail of bread crumbs right back to her office. underscoring her negligence, her lack of leadership as the speaker perfect house. -- speaker of the house. these are questions we'll

continue to dig into. our report coming -- will be finished in the weeks to come and we will present to you serious issues and recommendations at what congress and the next speaker of the house can do to provide better leadership and secure the united states capitol so something like january 6 never happens again. with that thank you. i yield to whip scalise. mr. scalise: thank you, jim. jim banks raised just some serious questions that should be answered by the january 6 commission but they're not. and they're not for a very specific reason and that's because nancy pelosi doesn't want those questions to be answered. in fact, she took the unprecedented step of kicking jim banks and jim jordan off of the january 6 committee because they were going to ask those questions that a lot of people would like the answers to. so when you hear them talking about it's all about getting to the truth, if they really believed in getting to the truth, they would have kept jim

banks and jim jordan on the committee to ask those questions and get the truth. that's not what this has been about. never was. to nancy pelosi. it was always about politics. and if there was any doubt that it was about politics, nancy pelosi removed that doubt when she took the unprecedented step of kicking the republicans off of the committee that leader mccarthy had appointed. and so it begs the question -- as we go around the country, as i go around my district, we're all being asked the same questions. the questions our constituents are asking is, what is congress going to do to help alleviate the problems that are hurting families in south louisiana, all across the country? what are they going to do to lower inflation, to lower gas prices, to secure america's border? that's the questions families are asking me and my colleagues around the country. i was just on the floor a few

minutes ago and asked leader hoyer if he would bring up a bill we have, house republicans have put together a broad package of legislation to lower gas prices and they refuse, nancy pelosi and all her minions refuse to bring bills like that to the floor. so as you're watching tonight, however many watch, i think it's important to note what primetime lineup is not included by nancy pelosi. is nancy pelosi going to hold a primetime hearing on inflation? i'd sure like to see that. i think a lot of americans would. is nancy pelosi going to hold a primetime hearing on lowering gas prices? they've refused to so far. they won't even bring a bill to the floor that will lower gas prices. and everybody knows what needs to happen to lower gas prices. because just two years ago, we were paying about $2 a gallon at the pump. and today we're paying more than double that. in many places, well over $5 a

gallon. when we know the answer. and it's not joe biden going to saudi arabia and begging opec, begging monopolies, begging dictators, begging putin to produce more oil. when the oil we need to secure america's energy security as well as our economic security is right here beneath our feet. we've got the energy here. and by the way, we produce it cleaner than anywhere else in the world. and so whatever his carbon footprint will be to fly to saudi arabia to talk about saving the planet to ask them to produce energy because he's beholden to the radical left who don't want to produce energy in america, why don't we have a hearing on that? why don't we have a hearing on the border crisis? we might invite vice president kamala harris who joe biden put on to secure the border. the fentanyl that's killing

thousands of young kids every single year. that fentanyl is coming across our southern border because joe biden has turned operational control of america's border over to drug cartels. where is that hearing? baby formula. there was just a report yesterday that came out that said joe biden's f.d.a. knew last year that there was going to be a crisis with baby formula. he didn't even have an f.d.a. commissioner until just a few months ago. he went a whole year without an f.d.a. commissioner. and you wonder why the f.d.a. was -- why don't we have a hearing during primetime? of course, we always know this is about politics. tonight you'll see it's about politics. and most importantly, the questions that jim banks raised are not going to be asked tonight and should be. and with that i want to bring up our conference chair, elise stefanik. ms. stefanik: thank you to the whip. nancy pelosi's sham committee is

illegitimate and its sole purpose is to punish democrats' political opponents. it will not prevent another january 6 from happening. it is not about finding out why nancy pelosi left the capitol so ill-prepared on that day. and it does absolutely nothing to address the numerous crises americans are suffering from every single day because of joe biden, nancy pelosi's far-left agenda. the truth is house democrats have no agenda for americans and no real solutions to the problems that we face on a daily basis. and they are desperately, shamelessly trying to change the narrative. but the american people are smart. they see this for exactly what it is, a desperate partisan distraction, a circus to focus on -- to move the focus away from the issues that actually impact people's lives. house republicans, we will continue to focus on the issues that matter to the american people and how to solve the

numerous crises that joe biden and house democrats' agenda has created. historically high gas prices that have now doubled since joe biden took office. over 70% of our nation's baby formula is out of stock. in my home district, i have a 9-month-old, they are rationing baby formula. this is the united states of america, folks. this is unacceptable and it's directly because of joe biden. inflation is at a 40-year high. higher than at any point in my lifetime. violent crime continues to skyrocket because of democrats' soft on crime policies and one of possibly the largest migrant caravans is headed to our southern border. house democrats have an agenda and are foe -- house republicans have an agenda and focused and this witch-hunt. i'll turn it to mr. mccarthy. reporter: speaker pelosi, will you be asking the same questions to mitch mcconnell? he also had an appointee for the

sergeant at arms, will you ask the same questions about capital security? -- capitol security? mr. mccarthy: we. we want to get to the bottom why this capitol was so ill prepared. there were reports that offered the national guard as early as january 2. we don't know why they weren't here. seen intel reporting after this, watched the crowd get out of control. people warned ahead of time. they were offering a national guard. we want to get to the bottom of why they weren't there. jonathan, how are you? reporter: thank you. can you just clarify something? do you believe that joe biden was the legitimate victor of the 2020 election? and do you believe that donald trump is just plat wrong when he says the election was stolen? mr. mccarthy: look. we answered this question a long time. joe biden is the president. i think you can look there's a lot of problems still within the election process. they just arrested a former

democratic congressman just the other -- was it yesterday in pennsylvania, in philadelphia? as we find a lot more information out there, we want to make sure people have the ability to vote and that it's as secure. reporter: that wasn't my question. mr. mccarthy: your question was -- reporter: was it legitimate? was donald trump wrong when he said the election was stolen? mr. mccarthy: look, jonathan, i answered that question. we'll move on now. thank you very much. thank you. reporter: so you won't answer that? mr. mccarthy: jonathan, i know you have a microphone. i already answered the question. thank you for your time. go right ahead. reporter: [indiscernible] mr. mccarthy: yes, sir. reporter: yes. leader mccarthy, does the committee -- do your members have any idea of when your alternative report will actually come out?

and if any other member -- how many people are actually cooperating with the -- with the alternative investigation? mr. mccarthy: if you're asking if we have on amazon for people to purpose the report and the date -- that's what the democrats have. if you're wondering if ours is going to be political like that, no. but our report will come out soon and we'll let you know when it is. reporter: i mean, you've said your concerns about this committee. even still, numerous members of the trump white house, even members of the former president's family appeared before this committee so why not testify? why not be transparent? mr. mccarthy: let's raise that question, all right. am i transparent? so the committee asked if i would come talk to them. so i sent them a letter to ask what they wanted to talk about, they never responded. what they said publicly, they wanted to talk about my conversation with the president on january 6. so on january6 when i had --

january 6 when i had the conversation with the president. i went on three networks. i think with you, jonathan. i had a longer discussion with the american public than with the president. there was nothing to be added. to go about and then the argument of whether you can subpoena members themselves, it purely looks to me that it's political. we sent a letter back. raised a lot of questions about that. to the first hand you'd have to realize is, if you go to quinn watkins, the supreme court has told the congress about the separations of power. does the committee have a legitimate legislative purpose? yes. but we have a separation of power. the legitimate legislative purpose would be exactly what the senate bipartisan committee did. they believe they want to be like the attorney general or something. that's why it's done. the committee was passed the rule by congress to say it would have 13 members. it does not have 13 members. the committee said that they could either have you come in or

write you questions. we said we'd answer them. they did not do that. the committee says in the setup that they would confer with the ranking member. there is no ranking member because i have not appointed anyone. so there are so many bases of why this political committee does not have a true standing. the basis where they're going. think about this for one moment. they hired somebody from abc who withheld information about epstein. they knew it and still hired him. are they using taxpayer money for that? they set up watching parties where they give free ice cream? who is paying for that, the dccc? gasoline has doubled since the president has been sworn in. inflation we have not seen in 41 years. you're flying in goat milk from australia to try to feed the american babies. will they bring any of that up? no. it's a political-driven committee. they already have the date set on amazon to buy it now.

why did they prolong it? why are they picking before the election? the only thing they have when the american people are hungry to solve so many other problems. yes, ma'am. yes. reporter: there was heartbreaking testimony yesterday and the day before from families who suffered devastating losses in the past couple weeks. and you and many members here advocated for funding, looking at mental health. that seems to be something everyone is talking about. in the senate, in addition to that, there is conversation about what who in this kind of profile we see of young men, especially, how can you figure out who might act violently, how you can apply that, can you talk to me about your thinking on red flag laws could be helpful and what would that look like and due process concerns, i know you

have that? is there any kind of red flag that would be helpful? i ask that because families are looking for more. they want more than that. and what are you willing to -- mr. mccarthy: i just don't think family. i have a family, too. i think everybody in america wants this. i think the devastation we're seeing is horrendous. i actually wish the house would do exactly what the senate did, sit down and have a discussion. we were back in session tuesday at 6:30 and voted on bills wednesday. it was the same thing like the committee. it was a political show. why would you bring up a red flag bill and not bring up due process? i was watching tulsi gabbard a minute ago on television talking about this as well who is a democrat nominee for president. if we are able to find and prevent everybody -- there wasn't one mental health place

there. there was no time to work together. i was talking with senator cornyn. find all the facts. you know, i want to highlight congressman tony gonzalez. this is his district. his district has gone through so much. he's been on the ground there listening to families, listening what's going on but it's just like everywhere else. we watched this tragic situation happen before. you know what we found? shooting in texas, another one. an individual came in and shot up a church. the church is back just like a museum. you know what we found? this individual was in the military, dishonorably discharged, abused his wife, never should have been able to have a weapon. when we were in the majority, we passed the fix nics. there is a way to go about doing this. that is sitting down and making sure you're dealing with all the issues and not playing political games which nancy pelosi chose.

this is the same speaker that told us the supreme court is safe this weekend but not yesterday. she has a bill on the floor that 100 senators voted for she won't bring. reporter: [indiscernible] mr. mccarthy: ok. let me explain that to you. reporter: [indiscernible] would have required bipartisan body [indiscernible] mr. mccarthy: ok. on january 12 -- yes. soon as you're done i'll explain. reporter: voted against that. [indiscernible] what in your opinion brought of the rioters to the capitol today? mr. mccarthy: let me answer your question. you said we voted against the

commission. on january 12 we offered the commission and every single democrat voted against it, it was on 9/11 the. pelosi wouldn't bring it up so we sent her a letter three months later before she responded. i'm not sure if you have been to these press conferences before we do weekly but we'd talk about that week after week. when nancy pelosi wanted to negotiate about she wanted to eliminate we could look at. she wanted the scope to be very narrow. in that time while she waited, we lost another officer on the gate over here by a terrorist attack to run over -- and had a knife. said we couldn't look at that. we couldn't look at what had happened in america just that short time before the riot in the streets that had been going over. riots that were in this city as well. and what she did -- i'll answer your question. what we did in that process, we wanted to have a 9/11, we wanted a scope. we put it on the floor, voted for it. pelosi played nothing but politics, delayed it. then, when they moved to this equation, we offered people to be on this committee.

that's the rules, the select committee to the minority to put people on. for 232 years, that's been the history of this house. but nancy pelosi said no. why? well, she didn't participate with the senate bipartisan committee. maybe she didn't want people to be able to question. it's american history. look across the street at the supreme court. you got that statue with a lead with a blindfold with a scale to be fair, to be equal. she wanted to make sure it was not equal. she wanted to pick and choose who could be on that we didn't have the right. never before in the history has allowed that to be. so no, we didn't participate with her political scam. we offered it. six days after january 6, a 9/11 committee, right after it happened. yes. reporter: you said both publicly and privately after january 6 what you thought some -- do you

feel like he was in some way responsible? mr. mccarthy: i thought everybody in the country had responsibility based on the riots. others. having seen what's going forward, what happened on january 2 when the national guard was offered to protect this capitol? prior to january 6, we had a problem at this capitol where they broke through the police in the kavanaugh hearings. what change took there? there is a legislative purpose for congress to look at. you have a separation of powers. pelosi continues to play politics. just the same reason why she won't do anything to let america become energy independent. she won't do anything to make sure those supreme court justices are going to be safe over the weekend. by unanimous consent, that's all it took, one member on the floor to say that.

yes, ma'am. reporter: should voters punish members who voted in favor of the january 6 commission? mr. mccarthy: i don't know because thompson -- voted in favor of the january 6 commission? no. members have a right to vote however they want. reporter: and jenkins couldn't run after what he said about assault weapons. mr. mccarthy: that's not true. he could run. he made a decision. reporter: what's your opinion? mr. mccarthy: my opinion -- reporter: [indiscernible] mr. mccarthy: i don't remember saying one thing about chris the gentlelady yields back the balance of her time objects. if -- chris jacobs. reporter: many in the media characterized what happened on january 6 is an insurrection and it's a de facto term to describe the events that happened that day. was it an insurrection and if not what term would you use?

mr. mccarthy: january 6, what happened in the capitol, was wrong. those that broke in the capitol were wrong and should be dealt with and that's exactly what we have in the process that the police, the f.b.i. to deal with. the role within congress we should look at why we were so ill prepared that day and how to protect it. yes. reporter: why do you think people stormed the capitol? do you think that motivation deserves to be investigated? mr. mccarthy: yes. that's what the f.b.i. did. reporter: two-part question here. a number of your members -- a number of your members -- if you take the majority you'll launch investigations into hunter biden. i'm curious if the legislative -- what the legislative angle is on that? people look at your investigations if you're in the majority and say they're illegitimate, we won't respond? mr. mccarthy: because we won't say illegitimate. we won't say democrats won't be on committee. we won't issue subpoenas for political -- going after our political opponents. we'll do exactly what congress is supposed to do.

we'll uphold the constitution. if there is a place for us to investigate, we'll investigate. yes, sir. reporter: thank you. republicans take over the house next year, would you commit to holding a vote on that independent commission legislation that you initially proposed in january of 2021? mr. mccarthy: i don't predetermine anything. we have an investigation right now. we'll see what that turns up. paul, how are you doing today? are you in a good mood? i worry about you sometimes. [laughter] reporter: so do i. so you cited the phone calls to then-president trump -- mr. mccarthy: phone call. that's a normal question. what part does he reject? reporter: he told the author jonathan how [indiscernible] the description of the call. they ask why did he mischaracterize the phone call

and he said in an interview [indiscernible] who was right? mr. mccarthy: i don't know. do you think i have an inferiority complex? i don't know. i don't know. could be. who else? i think you can judge. there are two people on the call. two people knows what happened. i spoke to the american people. reporter: can you say why you haven't participated in the investigation? mr. mccarthy: no. i have been denied the right to participate in the investigation. reporter: your lawyer sent a letter. mr. mccarthy: 11 pages. reporter: will you commit to participate by written testimony or in person? mr. mccarthy: i never said i wouldn't participate. you know, when it first came up, i said you put the republican members on, then it's a legitimate committee. they answered me but they didn't answer all my questions. so i sent them another letter and they haven't answered that. reporter: do you plan to make that letter public? mr. mccarthy: i can. there's no problem. yeah. >> last question.

reporter: what are the chances of the -- if you put a number on it -- what are the chances of you speaking to the committee at this point? and also, would republicans in the majority consider -- [indiscernible] democratic members of congress? mr. mccarthy: you know, it's interesting. i had a meeting with the majority leader. i would remind democrats, they are the ones who have changed all the rules. they are the ones who broke all tradition. they removed a member of congress for something they said that person said before they were ever a member of congress. they pick and choose who can be on committees. they denied a 232-year history of whether the minority could even offer people on a committee. they fined members based upon what they believe right and wrong. they allowed people to vote with never even being here. they take away the minority's

right to even have an amendment on the floor. i think it's the democrats who changed how the house works. if we happen to keep that same pattern, it would be the democrats who changed the rules and we just followed them. it's interesting if they would like that or not. reporter: are you going to keep that? mr. mccarthy: you know, these are all hypotheticals. i think we should definitely see what the outcome has. i do believe the american public is looking for people who will focus on the issues they care most about. make a congress that actually works for them. not a congress for their own personal belief to change an election law. not a congress in a will raise your price of gasoline and cause inflation. not a congress that makes a border insecure. i think what they're really looking for is a new direction. and i believe in 153 more days that will happen and there will be a new congress that works for the american public and follow the constitution and it will be one that makes us energy

independent, bring inflation down, secure our border, make our streets and schools safe again and, yes, we will be stronger and more prosperous. thank you for attending today. [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]