CPAC 2021- Winning Back America

Pete Hegseth. He's not too bad, is he? Oh, excellent. Kevin McCarthy was in the back saying, I don't know, I see some good candidates there. I don't know. I watched him out front. I watched that pass. I'm thinking, what district can I run in? Speaking of that, you know, Election Day was rough in some ways. Really rough. But in other ways, it really gave me great optimism for the future. And the greatest story of election night was getting so close to getting that gavel from Nancy Pelosi. Did it shock you that you got that close? We got closer than anybody thought we could get. They said we were going to lose 20 seats then. No one said we'd win seats. My dearest friend, who's a hardcore Republican, said the best we could do is lose 10. But this is the little secret. You know why we won that? Because President Trump worked on all these races and let me give you a little secret. And a little fact because I want you to tell your friends, especially your liberal friends. This is the first time since 1994 no incumbent Republican lost. We beat 15 Democrats. And you know who the 15 Democrats lost to? Conservative women and conservative minorities. Each and every one of them. And what happened, even when President Trump was sick with COVID, he called me this night in the hospital and said, Kevin, I've got to keep doing this. Because we couldn't do the rallies, right? He would do these rallies over the phone for each district and he'd have the candidate on that he would talk and it would turn out the votes. And that's what shocked because all the polls said we'd lose but election day the voters said, no, there's a new path. Awesome. And I have to say these two gentlemen probably won't like me saying it but I say it on a regular basis because it kind of puts you on the spot. But I think we have a great chance of getting the majority back. Not a chance. We're going to get the majority back. We're five seats away. I would bet my house Listen, we were 31,751 votes. My personal house. Don't tell my wife, but I would bet it. Listen, do you want to retire Nancy Pelosi? Hell yeah. Do you want to end the socialism in this country? Hell yeah. Win the house, five seats, the closest. This is the smallest majority the Democrats have had in 100 years. We could do it. Jim Banks, by the way, both of you have great scores with the American Conservative Union. You have been a great champion up there. His is probably even higher than mine. He has a tinge. I was trying to be so careful. By the way, a lot of these people we've had on the stage Mike Pompeo had an outstanding record in the House of Representatives. Ron DeSantis, someone I call now America's governor. And I guess what I'm learning from that is when you see conservatives get put in positions of power what you realize about the conservative philosophy when well executed it just makes a lot of sense. What is wrong with these colleagues of yours on the other side of the aisle that I hear them talk and I'm like where did they grow up? Where did they learn this stuff? Is this shocking to you? Where do they come from in America where they don't like America like we do, right? That's what I love about coming to CPAC. I'm reminded every time I come to CPAC why we're the right party. Why the Republican Party is on the right side of history. We hear a lot about the cancel culture these days and identity politics. Let me say if you identify yourself as an American you belong in the Republican Party. Period. You know I thought about you know I chair this group called the American Conservative Union. I love the name. I love the name because the left thinks we're a union and they always invite us to their parties and then they find out we're not that kind of union. And then I love the fact because I love the idea of being a conservative but I don't know what your response is to this but sometimes I think that like the conservative word isn't as important because we love America and it kind of stops there. You agree? You'll define it. Jim is an amazing individual. This is the type of America you want. He runs the biggest conservative group in Congress. The Republican Study Group. He's a veteran, served in the Navy in Afghanistan and he serves his country today because he believes in the exceptionalism of America. And that's what defines his difference between the conservatives and the socialists. Yeah I almost wonder if we could think about the way the press likes to say Republicans are fractured. Here's the truth and you all know it not all of you are Republicans in this crowd is we're actually getting everybody who just doesn't like communism, socialism, and Marxism. Would you agree? That's totally true. Let me tell you this week a poll came out. I'm going to brag on him a little bit because he just bragged on me. The most popular Republican figure in Congress today is Kevin McCarthy. Let me tell you who the least popular Republicans in the party are today. They're those few, very few Matt. They're stittering out there. There's very few Republicans the least popular in our party are the ones who want to erase Donald Trump and Donald Trump supporters from our party. Let me tell you if that happens we won't win back the majority in 2022. We definitely won't win back the White House in 2024 if we erase Donald Trump. You have a leader right here. I'm the conservative leader and you and I both know Matt for decades the conservative leader fights with the Republican leader. Not anymore because Kevin McCarthy is the right leader for the right time to win back the majority. He's going to be the best Speaker of the House we've had in a generation. Good guys. Kevin would like you to keep talking. I yield the rest of the time. I didn't come here to suck up to Kevin McCarthy because I tell him the truth at times too. Let me tell you the truth. It is great to be in Florida where you guys are normal. You're open. I don't have to wear a mask anymore. That's so much better than California. Did you guys like it when Kevin McCarthy said it was the right thing for Donald Trump to be at CPAC? I don't know what your response is to that. And we're getting closer. The other thing we were just talking about backstage is, and we talked about this with Ambassador Lighthizer and with Senator from Tennessee. Come on, help me. Bill Hagerty. A great man. I got a lot on my mind folks. There's a lot going on. What we were talking about is the fact that this new Republican party, this new coalition is what I really call it. We're the ones focused on the working men and women, the forgotten men and women. Corporate America is so woke and we're focused on the actual workers. That's exactly true. There's a new poll that came out and it literally says the Republican party grew with the blue-collar workers. Because it was forgotten men and women that Donald Trump listened to the voice that no one else would listen to. And we're never going to forget those people. And that's what we're focused on. Look what happened this morning at 2 a.m. Nancy Pelosi put about a $2 trillion bill in. There was a vote on the floor. She put a tunnel in Silicon Valley that has nothing to do with COVID into the bill. We wanted to take that money and give it to the kids to get them back in school. It's an easy discussion, right? We want people back to work, back to school, back to health. Pelosi wants to put more tunnels, more waste and the Democrats voted for it. It's a clear place. Who's standing for the American public and who's standing for corporations? It's the Republican party today and it's what we're going to be tomorrow and in the future and that's why America's going to be stronger because we'll put America first. Matt, that's exactly true. Donald Trump taught us many things. More than anything else, he made the Republican party the party of the working class for the first time since Reagan. He changed the political paradigm. The Democrat party today is the party of multinational corporations, of big business, of Wall Street, of Silicon Valley. China. And they're the pro-China party. Putting American workers last for the interests of our greatest adversary and Wall Street interests ahead of the interests of the working class, working men and women in this country. I grew up, my dad is a retired factory worker. He made axles all of his life. He identified as a Democrat for most of his life. He didn't like a lot of the Republican leaders until Donald Trump. He was for Donald Trump and we have to keep voters like my dad in the fray and under Kevin McCarthy's leadership, under my leadership we're going to continue to be the party of the working class for a long time to come. There's something really true out there. I don't care if you're conservative, liberal or what else. I do not know what the Chinese party and government has on the Democrats but it is so powerful. It is so powerful. It is scary. They put Eric Swalwell on the Intel committee. I've been in a briefing just myself and Nancy Pelosi. Anyone that's ever heard that briefing would not have them on that committee and would question would even keep them in Congress. But that's what's happening in the Democratic party. What's the first thing that Joe Biden does? He calls the Chinese Xi and he placates to them. He says now what they do on human rights oh it's okay, it's a cultural thing. He won't stand up for what they're doing to our universities. China wins that election if Biden gets in. That's the problem, what happened. And I don't know what they have on the Democratic party but it's powerful and we need people like Jim Banks that was part of the China task force that has a plan to actually stand up to them so the next century is the American century. It's a great video, good work. So let's get to this question of this radical policy that's hitting the House floor and hitting the Senate floor. I'm sure it's shocking to all of you. We've been all kind of numb since the election and then you start seeing will the Democrats be as radical in their policy proposals as they told us? And we're always such nice people. We say oh come on, they're going to not be that way and then it starts coming. And so radical on this most recent COVID bill they can't even keep their own members together. Losing members from Maine and stuff, that must be interesting. Are they starting, do you see a chance that maybe, maybe in the House it's almost impossible because Queen Pelosi is too tough and she's, you know, she keeps them together. But if you can make the rhetorical points in the House, maybe there's a couple Senators that are beginning to realize that being a socialist isn't so good at the ballot box. The only bipartisan vote last night was against that COVID bill. Less than 9% of it had anything to do with COVID. It was all a waste. But what else is happening here is, when you put a bill out you'll see the HR number. They reserved the HR 1 for the most important bill. You know what the Democrats have? HR 1 is to take over our entire election system. What they've done is change, they've changed the rules in Congress that have never been changed before to take away the right of the minority to even have an amendment because they're afraid of our idea. Jim Banks is fighting this with the Republican Study Group. You're the very first one that came out against that election. And we have a bill, the Republican Study Committee introduced a bill to save Democracy Act. I hope you'll take a look at it. Almost half of the American people today don't trust our election because of the fiasco that happened in November. And we're trying to restore, we have a moral duty as Republicans to restore trust in our election system. Let me tell you, HR 1 would do the opposite. And that's what the Democrats are going to ram through the House next week. And if I could give, and I'm sure you both would agree, if I could give you one charge in leaving CPAC, it would be do all you can to any member that we have any influence over to explain to them that it's unacceptable to have this unconstitutional power grab on elections so that what we saw this election will be what you will see every single election. And we have to fight it. Now, in order to fight it, we've got to pick up more seats. We started talking about politics. Let's end this conversation by talking about politics. I stand corrected. It's not if we get the majority, it's when we get the majority. Tell us your blueprint for getting that done. Listen, we're going to continue to do exactly what we did in the last election. We elected more Republican women in the history of America before, just last time. We're going to continue to build in every other district. But if you look at history, there's only five seats to win the majority. Next election, we have redistricting, where we do a census every ten years, they redraw all the lines. You know who loses seats? All these left running governors. California, Illinois, New York. You know who gains two seats in Florida, three in Texas. History says the party in power, whoever wins the White House, on the first off-year election, on average, loses 27 seats. In 2009, I was the deputy whip and I was the recruitment chair. It was taking us 40 seats to be able to win the majority. Nobody believed we could. You know what happened that election? We beat 63 Democrats. So let's not settle for 27. Let's double that number and make sure we have it for the next ten years. Well, I think we should give a warm CPAC welcome to those champions in the House of Representatives who are fighting the socialist agenda. We appreciate what you're doing. Mr. Leader, Mr. Chairman, keep up the great work and thanks for being at CPAC. Thank you all very much.