Retiring California representative and former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy gave Speaker of the House Mike Johnson advice before he parts from Congress later this month.
During an interview with CBS News, which aired during Sunday's Face the Nation, outgoing McCarthy attempted to quell any fears Johnson may have over the motion to vacate the office of Speaker of the House, which led to McCarthy's October ousting as Speaker.
“I think the best advice I could give to him: you’re the speaker of the House. Do not — do not govern in the idea that you’re afraid somebody’s going to make a motion to vacate,” McCarthy said.
“When I made the decision to pay our troops and not shut down, I knew they were going to make a motion to vacate on me," McCarthy said. "I didn’t even know the Democrats would go along with it. But what I did know is, I had been in that room before. I had watched what had failed."
“I knew, at that moment, that when I thought before I ran for office, you would always tell yourself, would you do what you think was right?" the retiring congressman continued. "Would you literally risk your job and do it? You say you would, but when you came to that moment, I hope history writes that I actually did what I said I would do before I ever got elected when that moment came."
McCarthy said he would "do it all again."
"Because I hope others would look at that and do the exact same thing. It was right," he said.
Johnson commented on the Republican Party's shrinking majority as New York Rep. George Santos was expelled from the House last week and stressed the need for unity within the Republican conference in a Sunday interview with Fox News. “We have to keep the team together and I think everybody understands the importance of the job that we have to do. We have to demonstrate we can govern well,” Johnson told the outlet. “When we do that, I think we’ll expand the majority and we’ll be in a much better situation in the next round.” In October, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz spearheaded an effort to remove McCarthy as Speaker for negotiating deals with House Democrats in a closed-door meeting, and also for failure to commit to promises made during January's historically contested Speaker vote. McCarthy was successfully ousted and became the first Speaker in United States history to be removed from the office. After several weeks of Republican infighting in search of a candidate, Johnson officially secured Speakership in late October with a unanimous 220 votes from House Republicans.
