Kevin Hern: This Is Why I Should Be Chosen For Next Speaker Of The House
Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK) speaks to a reporter about why he should be the next Speaker of the House.
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00:00 Congressman, what were you up to over the weekend and what is your pitch to members
00:03 given that there's nine Republicans running in this Speaker's race?
00:06 Well, sort of a continuation of when we looked at the Speaker's race three weeks ago and
00:10 then the majority leaders race the following week and now we're back in the Speaker's race
00:14 again is really calling members.
00:16 At the end of the day, what members are wanting to tell everybody is leading is we want to
00:21 be heard, we want to be valued, we want our ideas to be looked at, considered.
00:26 And so when you reach out to them like I've been doing, calling them one-on-one, not having
00:30 proxies call them or staff, it's been really enlightening to see what they're wanting from
00:35 us and quite frankly, they're wanting to be reunited.
00:39 And so a lot of our members are expecting to hear some great messaging tonight.
00:43 One thing I will assure you you're going to hear from all of my colleagues that are running
00:46 for Speaker is that they can do it.
00:48 The question everybody's going to have to ask is what's the case being made of how you're
00:52 going to do it and do you have the experience to do it?
00:55 And I believe I do.
00:56 How many Republican members have you talked to over the last couple days?
00:59 Oh, about 185, 186, something like that.
01:03 Do they take your calls on the weekends?
01:04 They do.
01:05 I've just been on – sorry, I was late with you because I was on the call with something.
01:08 Can I ask you, when you talk about how you're going to do the job, there's a supplemental
01:13 that got sent over from the White House, $105 billion that ties Israel aid and Ukraine aid
01:18 together.
01:19 Would you commit to putting that supplemental on the floor of the House?
01:23 Well, if I were Speaker, what I would do – and I think you're going to hear this from all
01:26 the Republican nominees or potential candidates here – are that we would split off Israel
01:32 right now and get that passed because it would pass unanimously.
01:35 It would send a message not only to Israel that we're in a truly supportive position
01:39 with them, but it would send a message to the rest of the world, don't mess around,
01:44 don't invade our greatest friend and ally in the Middle East.
01:47 And so I think that's important we get that done.
01:50 We know there's some consternation around Ukraine.
01:52 All we've asked the President to do is just tell us where the money's going.
01:56 He did a better job of telling us that we're going to use that money he's asking for
01:59 to resupply our munitions with American labor.
02:04 That is a great start, but also come and give us in a classified setting what's the strategy
02:08 for Ukraine, because we're going to continue to send hundreds of billions of dollars with
02:12 no end in sight, and we'd like to hear that.
02:14 Would you commit, though, to putting Ukraine aid on the floor as a separate vote if it
02:18 was not tied to the Israel funding?
02:20 If we can get the President – I would summon the President here to tell us or his team
02:23 to tell us where the money's going for sure and what the strategy is.
02:27 And upon that, they'd do that in a classified setting where nobody can talk about the strategy.
02:31 That way, at least give us kind of an idea where the future funding's going to go.
02:35 And then certainly after that, we'd be more than happy to look at how we're going to
02:38 fund that going forward.
02:39 What do you make of the fact the administration also sent up a request for border security
02:43 money on the southern border?
02:44 Is that something Republicans would be supportive of?
02:46 You know, you've got to see where the money's going to go.
02:48 I would argue, if you look at H.R. 2, it's not always about the money.
02:52 It's about what we're doing with policies on the southern border.
02:54 A lot of the money that the President's wanting is to buy a new shelter in New York and Chicago
03:00 to shelter more people that are going there.
03:02 The problem with that is that doesn't solve the problem.
03:04 It's not a deterrent.
03:06 It's just now we're accommodating more.
03:08 And that's a problem for American taxpayers.
03:10 That's not where the money should be going.
03:11 I want to talk about the government funding deadline, because it's coming up on November
03:15 17th.
03:16 What is your strategy to keep the government from shutting down?
03:20 And what are you going to tell your colleagues tonight?
03:21 Well, certainly what I'm going to tell them is we've got to work more days than just two
03:25 that we have on the calendar for the rest of the time we have allotted here.
03:28 But we're going to have to work more days, and we're going to have to look at a calendar
03:31 of what that schedule looks like.
03:33 We're going to have to talk about getting the Department of Defense conferenced and
03:37 getting it passed to send a message not only to the Middle East but to the rest of the
03:40 world that our military is in full force and full support of the Congress and the White
03:45 House.
03:46 That needs to be done.
03:47 We need to get with the Rules Committee to get the appropriation bills that are passed
03:50 out of committee, get those on the floor, even the combined rule, get them passed, get
03:54 them out and start doing the open amendments, get the appropriators to get the last two
03:57 bills that are being held up right now by Republicans, which is Labor H and CJS, to
04:02 get those out, and see what we can get done between now and November 17th deadline.
04:07 You want to pass individual appropriations bills and get them conferenced before November
04:11 17th?
04:12 Well, we're going to do all we can to get it done, so at least we have what we're going
04:15 to do.
04:16 You're never going to take shutdown off the table.
04:18 That's not my negotiating, but I'm not going to take all the tools off the table for any
04:21 speaker, whether it's me or anybody else.
04:23 They need to have all the levers to push on the Senate, who is always kind of slow about
04:27 getting things done, although now the Senate is actually working on so many buses, which
04:31 is great.
04:32 I've been meeting with some of those folks, and I think right now what's going on around
04:35 the world, people are getting a little nervous that we're having so many fights in Washington,
04:39 D.C.
04:40 We need to put our strength back on the table.
04:42 Would you support putting a short-term spending bill on the floor to avoid a government shutdown?
04:46 It's only a couple of weeks until November 17th.
04:48 I would, but not right now.
04:50 We're going to do our work first, and then we'll look at a CR as we get closer.
04:53 What about for the fuller one-year spending bill?
04:58 What is the plan there?
04:59 Well, certainly, again, we'll get appropriation done to see what the Senate wants to do.
05:03 We know if it goes beyond April 1st, we have a 1% cut automatically kick in.
05:08 The problem with that has an extraordinary high number just based on the baseline that's
05:13 going to cut defense.
05:14 We do not need to be cutting defense right now.
05:16 In fact, some would argue that it needs to be even more with all the assets we need to
05:19 move around the world, stay in the Mediterranean, certainly what's going on right now in South
05:25 China Sea, what's going on around Taiwan.
05:27 We're looking to see if China's going to try to make a move in our weakness.
05:31 There's just a lot going on right now.
05:33 And so right now, we need to be pushing to get those done.
05:35 I know my bill – or my process would be live somewhere between Steve Scalise and Jim
05:41 Jordan.
05:42 I wouldn't want to go immediately to a CR and working under that.
05:46 Right now, I think what you're going to see is that everybody's going to be acceptable,
05:49 for the most part, to mark to the FRA levels, which is $1.5 trillion on the appropriation
05:54 bills, and move and get all the appropriation bills done as quickly as possible.
05:57 Can you take a step back and just talk a little bit about this moment for the Republican conference?
06:03 You guys left last week.
06:04 A lot of raw nerves, a lot of frustrated members.
06:08 How do you unite the Republican Party, and how do you keep sort of the eight people who
06:14 voted to oust McCarthy – what do you do to make sure that if you were the speaker,
06:18 they don't oust you?
06:19 Well, certainly, you stay engaged with them.
06:22 When you're in a small majority, it's a challenge, right?
06:25 I mean, with the motion of vacate that was given to the conference back on the first
06:30 week of January by Speaker McCarthy, there were some concerns in by members.
06:35 And what we saw just three weeks ago, tomorrow, came to fruition.
06:40 And now what we've seen is the entire conference – not just our conference, but the House
06:45 – is in disarray.
06:46 So is the Senate, because the Senate can't really get anything done unless we're in
06:50 business.
06:51 And I would argue that the whole federal government is using the money that's already been appropriated,
06:56 and when we get that running out, we know the deadline's on it.
06:59 We have a deadline right here.
07:00 And I think the biggest deadline that we have is what's going on in the Middle East with
07:03 Israel.
07:05 Because we're sitting here not knowing where we're going to get our speaker back in place,
07:09 so we can do a condemnation of Hamas, this terrorist organization, send a resolution
07:13 on Israel, and start moving our defense bills.
07:17 We're going to have a real problem maintaining our leadership position in the world.
07:21 Would you get rid of the motion to vacate at a threshold of one if you were the speaker?
07:25 I would certainly listen to the conference.
07:27 And if the conference wants to take that back to the rules, we'd certainly look at it.
07:31 Do you think there should be any punishment for the eight people who voted to oust McCarthy?
07:34 You know, when I first started in business 35 years ago, I spent probably the first five
07:39 years with a continuing growing anxiety and angst toward people who did me wrong.
07:45 And I looked up one day, and I was spending about 95 percent of my time chasing 2 percent
07:48 of the people.
07:50 And the other 98 percent of the people that worked for me were not getting my attention.
07:54 We need to be looking forward, not looking backwards.
07:57 America wants that.
07:58 They don't want us to continue to fight.
07:59 And I'm looking forward, not backwards.
08:01 Thank you for your time.
08:02 I appreciate it.