McCarthy on House Passing Debt Bill: ‘We Made History,’ ‘The Biggest Cut and Savings Congress Has Ever Voted For’

EXCERPT:

McCARTHY: "I've been thinking about this before my vote for speaker because I knew the debt ceiling was coming. I wanted to make history. I wanted to do something no other Congress has done. That we would literally turn the ship. That for the first time in quite some time we'd spend less than we spent the year before. Tonight, we all made history. Because this is the biggest cut and savings this Congress has ever voted for. And it’s not that we’re just voting for it. This is going to be law. $2.1 trillion, you’ve all covered this entire battle. You were there on February 1st when I walked out after talking to the president. I was kind of hopeful because he told me in that meeting we would meet again. He sat next to me at the prayer breakfast the next morning. He told the entire crowd that we would meet again. But for 97 days he said no. People look at me and say, why are you always an optimist? Because I know, as an American, tomorrow will be better than today. I had to be an optimist that every day I woke up and said, 'Maybe today the president would change his mind. Maybe today he would want to put the country first maybe today he’d want to meet.' But he never did. Not until our entire conference passed the bill. The Senate never did. It took no action. The Democrats' plan was to do a discharge petition, to only raise the debt ceiling and we would have no savings. It would take us further off the cliff.”