Sent to President Bidens desk to be signed into law. Senator mccarthy, senator schumer and the president spoke about the legislation which suspends the debt until january 2025 and could reduce the deficit by 1. 5 trillion dollars over the next 10 years. Speaker mccarthy after the house passage. Speaker mccarthy thank thank you all for being here. I want to start by saying how grateful i am to garrett graves and Patrick Mchenry have given their time and talent for more than a month. We would not be without them and the country and congress owes them a debt. On february 1, i got my first meeting with the president. Ive been thinking about this day 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, for the first time in quite some time we would spend less than a year before. Tonight we all made history. Because this is the biggest cut and savings this congress has ever voted for. It is not that we are just voting for it, this is going to be law. 2. 1 trillion. You have all covered this entire battle. You were there when i walked out after talking to the president. I was hopeful, he told me in that meeting we would meet again. He sat next to be at the Prayer Breakfast the next morning, he told me that 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. Every day i woke up and said, maybe today the president will change his mind. Maybe he would want to put the country first, maybe he would want to meet. What 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. When i finally got to meet with the president , he could not talk about the entire budget. We could not talk about, and look at places we could have savings, we could only focus on 11 of the budget. In that 11 , not only did we give you the greatest savings in American History, there is going to be people who are on welfare today who will no longer be on welfare. They will find a job. Because of a work requirement. Not just when they find that job, their selfworth and attitudes will change. They will believe in themselves, they will buy a house and put kids through college because of the boat we took tonight. Because of the boat we took tonight, vote we took tonight, all of the covid money, the billions of dollars sitting out there, that they said it would never bring back. To the taxpayer, to you hardworking americans, we stood for you. We brought that money back. For those who are afraid they will get audited because the president wants to have 87,000 irs agents, right now he has zero. We took every single dollar they were going to hire somebody this year away. I promise you, i will be back next year, and next year, and next year. I believe government should be to help you, not go after you. We didnt just take the money from this year, we took another 20 billion. I think we should get some more Border Agents with that 20 billion, i think that is where america would want to see us go. We cap the ability of growth, of spending and government, for the next six years. We are Holding People accountable to do the work you are swiss to do as a member, otherwise, cuts across the board. We are on shackling what holds america back from competition with other countries. For the first time in 40 years, we changed an Environmental Review processes, so you dont have to wait seven years on average to build the road. You can do it in one or two. It is not just the bridges, not just the roads, it is the energy projects, that will make us energy independent. We stopped 400 million going from the cdc Global Health fund, not to americans, but taking americans money to send it to china. I believe in looking after america first. More than two thirds of our conference voted for it. Weve got all the democrats who signed the discharge positioned to say they would never raise the debt ceiling them only raise it clean. We got them to vote for a two. Ink about how much further we can go. I didnt stand far from this room after a couple days of trying to get elected speaker. Every question you gave me, could we survive . What could we even do . I told you then, it is not how you start, it is how you finish. Each week we have stood up for the american public. We had the stockist border security, parents rights, ending the pandemic or standing up against those who are weak on crime to make our streets safer. Tonight i hope we proved it to you again. That we put the citizens of america first. We did not do it by taking the easy way. We did not do it by the way the people did in the past, by just lifting it. We decided that you had to spend less, and we achieved that goal. Is it everything i wanted, no. But sitting with one house, with a democratic senate, the democratic president who didnt want to meet with us, i think we did pretty dang good for the american public. My last statement to everyone in america, i will never give up on you. It was not an easy fight. I had people on both sides upset. But i was focused on you. I will stay focused on you because i am waking up tomorrow, going after everything we did not get here today. This is an Extraordinary Team that helped us. Our majority leader, steve scalise. Thank mr. Speaker. Nobody said it would be easy to break washingtons outofcontrol spending pattern. It has been going on for decades. If you look at the spending curve, just how much money every year washington has been spending, more than it takes in. For years, people would say, somewhere is going to start, where they turn the ship. Where they start writing the ship, where we finally start cutting spending. Yet it never happened. Republican them cap and ministry fail, tonight we took the first step. A bill that cuts real dollar spending next year compared to what it was this year. That is an important first start. It is just the beginning, this is by far not the end. It is the beginning of changing the pattern of spending in washington. Make no mistake, if nancy pelosi was still speaker and the democrats were in charge, we would not be having a conversation about how much we cut, the conversation would be, about how much more did washington vote to spend. How many more taxes did jill biden put on the hardworking families of america . Because that is what President Biden wanted to do. He made it clear, not just to Speaker Mccarthy, that he talked about it publicly. He wanted more taxes, even though he has passed over 1 trillion in new taxes. That tax and spend burden over the last two years is one of the reasons why families are struggling today. Why inflation is running skyrocketing out of control today. It wasnt until Speaker Mccarthy said, that day is over, no taxes , in fact, no new spending. We are finally going to start negotiating about how much to cut. How much to save for the American People. How much can we finally get our country turned around and start growing the economy. This bill contains components of all of those elements. Real cuts in spending, if you look at some of the important factors, just cutting over 1 billion in the irs. Cbo confirmed it would be going after lower income families. People that are single moms, working two jobs, would be paying more. We finally started to reverse that trend. Real work requirements. You want to talk about coming that will help change the culture of this country . Getting people back to work at a time when everybody is looking for workers. People think it is psychotic that the federal governments borrowing money for countries like china to pay people not to work at a time when everybody is looking for workers. Not only do these work requirements help restore the dignity of work, but these work requirements will help strengthen programs like Social Security and medicare that are so vital to us and so important to those people who earned those benefits. Yet when President Biden started paying millions of more people to sit on the sidelines, to turn down work and still get over 35,000 a year and benefits, they are not paying into Social Security or medicare. That is one of the reasons why most programs are going towards bankruptcy under resident biden. We reversed that trend by striving important programs. A lot of other important provisions in this bill. This is the first step, this is a down payment. On the other things that we are going to start doing, none of the things with the possible if we do not start tonight. And the action that was taken by this house, in this majority. I want to yield to somebody who has been working overtime to make sure that all of our members, from every swath of our conference, have been able to talk about the important components of this bill all around the country over the last few weeks. Our conference chair, elise stefanik. Today is truly a historic today. The physical response ability act is a win for the American People and future generations. I know that as the newest mom in congress, when i think of my son , when i think about the babies born in this country, we are standing up for them. I also want to think speaker Kevin Mccarthy for his extraordinary leadership this entire team, patrick and garrett for leading negotiations and the dedicated and disciplined teamwork of our House Republican conference to successfully communicate our message and deliver this result for the American People. The fiscal response ability act will be the largest percent reduction in history. It will restore fiscal sanity, and it will hold washington accountable. Despite being consistently and constantly underestimated by the mainstream media, week after week, since the start of this republican congress, but week after week, day after day, House Republicans will work tirelessly for you, the American People. We will continue to provide policy solutions and successfully communicate around these Critical Issues to strengthen our economy. And we won this public narrative with the support of the American People. Between President Biden and Speaker Mccarthy, House Republicans one from start to finish. The passage of this legislation is a testament to House Republicans delivering on our commitment to an america an economy that is stronger it i look for to the Senate Passing this bill and i think Speaker Mccarthy and the entire conference for their teamwork and leadership to deliver this result. I am now honored to turn it over to one of our chief vote counters, our chief deputy whip, and i want to think our whip for their incredible work. My good friend from pennsylvania. We have to remember where we were when we started. Everybody said that the democrats would not negotiate, that biden would not negotiate it, that there had to be a clean debt ceiling increase. We were told that republicans would never have the votes to lift a debt ceiling. We passed with were public and votes, we did that despite everybody saying we wouldnt. And then we came back, we got Kevin Mccarthy in the room, we got garrett graves in the room, Patrick Mchenry to negotiate. We were told again that the republicans when i have the votes. Tonight we passed this with over two thirds of our conference voting for this act. We knew we had to do two things. We had to lift the debt limit, we had to avoid financial disaster. We also had to have a real spending performs. It is the largest deficit reduction we have had in history. I could not be more proud of our with team, Speaker Mccarthy and the two negotiators we had in the room. I would like to handed over to my good friend chairman mchenry. It was an honor to negotiate on behalf of the House Republicans. It was a true honor, a real privilege to work with garrett graves of louisiana. Who has become a very dear friend of mine and a trusted confidant. It was tough, a tough negotiation. It didnt please everyone. You will ask anybody in the halls. It is a divided government, expectations have to be right on what we can achieve. Even divided government, we brought a fiscally conservative package to the house of representatives. Commensurate with the House Republicans demand that we paired on spending, the command of the speaker that we spent less money next year then we spent this year. And we delivered on that. 2 trillion of savings. It lightens the taxpayers burden. We have work requirements, we think the value of work is important for american society. We give people the opportunity. And connect it with a safety net. And we balance that, making sure that we are careful about the homeless population, veterans, and those right out of foster care. You are very thoughtful about that. With permitting reform, with environmental law changes, we are going to see Energy Production in america that will happen more quickly. We will see projects happen, like roads and buildings have been were cheaply. And a whole lot faster. It is a good package. This is a down payment on what conservative governments can look like. But in a divided washington, it is not perfect. But it is a step in the right direction for the conservative philosophy that i hold. And the outcomes that i seek and House Republicans seek. I want to think Speaker Mccarthy. Without his focus and effort, without building consensus among House Republicans and being able to deliver, we wouldnt have been at the negotiating table. We had a lot of folks that wanted to make the perfect enemy of the good, this was quite a good package. I am proud of the work were able to put forward, i am proud that this bill can become law. It was an honor to work with my good friend, one of the most intelligent, focused members of congress, and one of the worst practical jokers that i have ever met, my good friend, eric graves. What a year it has been. You are never in january, you are looking at one of the thinnest majorities in history. You, along with everybody else around the country, sitting and thinking a month this will be a dysfunctional congress. There is one person standing behind me who said this is not going to be a dysfunctional congress, this is going to be a transformational congress. With one of the thinnest majorities in modern history, look at what has happened in the house of representatives, how the speaker has been able to unite numbers of the conference with diverse ideologies. Pull people together and pass legislation which transforms how we deal with energy in the United States, helping to lower prices, lower emissions, sever our depends a dependence on other countries for energy. We have a crisis on our southern border, with millions of citizens of other countries illegally crossing into our nation, bringing fentanyl that is killing our own citizens. In reaching cartels, human trafficking, and this speaker brought people together and we passed border security, American Security legislation. We had a paris bill of rights that was passed with strong support. We had a bill that was signed into law that prevented a lessening of punishment for crime. Had a bill that was signed into law that ended the covid emergency. And today, one of the most historic pieces of legislation that has ever passed the house of representatives. A bill that will save the American People over 2 trillion. A bill that helps to restore the upper read balance of powers and envisioned as envisioned by our founders that ensures the role of congress, that ensures that you do not have a tyrant, a dictator, a monarchy that is out there waving a wand deciding that hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer funds are going to be sent spent without any approval or consideration by their representatives in the United States congress. Legislation that builds upon work requirements, that benefits those who pay taxes and those that are dependent upon our social welfare seeking a. It has been proven that this helps get people back into the workforce. I can go on and on about the benefits of the legislation. This is one of the most significant pieces of legislation that has ever passed. With a bumpy start, and many people with low expectations, we have once again passed transformational legislation. It is just the first step. One of the best strategist i have ever seen in my life. What you saw today, the legislation that passed with over 300 votes, hitting high watermark and categories no one ever expected or achieved. It wouldnt have happened without him, the persistence and the optimism. Thank you. There is one person that is not here right now that deserves a lot of credit. That is our flip our whip. I will take some questions. In the bill there is the cr opposition. Speaker mccarthy this is not an automatic cr. For too long, i am frustrated how this place works. People did not have to show up for work. You could not be in this building. We would have to pass thousands thousand page bills with no one reading it. I hope you understand that has all changed. What we would do is, and the past, the democrats would throw 1. 4 billion right over christmas. Told us they had to pass it or we couldnt go home. No more business that way, this place has changed. This was i99 page bill. They had 72 hours to read it. 15 pages were just things we are taking back. What this does them a by january 1, encourages this body to pass all 12 of proration bills. Do the job you are elected to do. It is not a 1 cut across the board. What happens between october 1 and january 1 . Speaker mccarthy you have to pass some type of cr during that time period. Does it say more democrats voted for this bill then republicans . Do you have regrets not pushing for deeper spending cuts . Speaker mccarthy nondefense spending is lower than it was in 2022. What we just proved was democrats were here, they spent 6 trillion, they brought is inflation. They said the only thing they would do is raise the debt limit. Now they voted for work requirements, they just voted to put paygo on our president. They kept spending. You said that she wont give up on the American People, what exactly do you mean by that . President biden said the other day that you did what you said you would do. How do you respond to that . How do you see your role as speaker of the house Going Forward . Speaker mccarthy im not sure i heard everything. You tell me if i am wrong. What does that mean, not give up on the American People . That President Bidens i kept my word . Ok. What yc Going Forward what do i see Going Forward . When i talk about the American People, we will not stop until we see our streets safe. Until we see our borders secure. Until we get the rest of the irs agents repealed. Until we put ourselves on a path that a new child born in america is not given a 95,000 bill. We will make our economy stronger. We will make streets safer. We will give you more freedom. Government gets out of your life. And were not going to stop until we make this happen. If the Senate Amends the bill, with the house be prepared to vote again . Speaker mccarthy lets be serious how we got here. You said unique coalition. It is a coalition of a republican congress, a fiveseat majority leading. The president would never have even met with us. He denied meeting with us for 100 days until we passed something. The senate did nothing. The House Democrats of they would never vote until the president came down and told them this was their deal. They werent in the room. That is the unique coalition. The democrats at the end of the day joined us. I will take that any day of the week. While the majority passed this with majority, you still had more democrats voting in favor than republicans. Chairman mchenry told me that those in opposition to this legislation didnt understand the bill. Is there anything you believe you couldve done differently to get more members to see this bill the way you do . Speaker mccarthy every day i can wake up and improve. There is so many times i stumble as we go. It is difficult in a time of negotiations to keep your full conference of rest. Abreast. If we do, you leak it. And Something Else blows up. Maybe if we were in session and closing out to the end. I dont think we were ever going to get anybody. We had people who didnt vote for limits. Andy biggs did not vote for that. They have never voted for it. So we will never get everybody. But we have spent bringing four months bringing everybody together. Whether you voted for or against, you wanted something more, right . I can only look at what is on the bill. If im going to say this doesnt have something i want, i vote no against every bill. But history will write, this is the largest cut in American History. It is not even close. There is a number of people who voted in the past. Maybe i could have explained it better. Maybe i could have been out front better. But i will improve each day. It wasnt an easy task. The president not wanting to meet with us. There is a lot of things we can do better. Yes, maam. How do you define them as giving nothing when they got more votes than republicans . Speaker mccarthy they voted for it because they wanted to stick up for the president. I will bring in more work requirements. I am coming back tomorrow with more cuts. I am bringing more of that back because i didnt get everything i want. If you think democrats like repealing 21 billion from the irs agents that they want to hire. This is great. I think it is wonderful that they voted for it. They are now on record. They cant sit there and yelled this is good. So i will bring Something Back tomorrow. Lets get the rest of the irs agents, the rest of the work requirements. Lets cut more because we are in a big debt. This is fabulous. This is one of the best nights i have ever been here. I thought it would be almost impossible just to get to 218. Now it is a whole new today. They have woken up. Maybe they listen to our speeches. I dont know. You obviously got a majority of your conference Speaker Mccarthy over two thirds. Should this quiet rumblings from House Freedom caucus members about the motion to vacate . Speaker mccarthy yes. Conference members have been vocal about issues with this bill. Some said you violated promises you made in january. What is your response to that . Speaker mccarthy did i say i would cut the biggest spending cut in American History . I probably suppressed my promise. If you take the nondefense veterans out, it is lower than 2022. We got some work requirements. We said we would cap spending. We got six years of that. So im not sure which promise i can make that i couldnt keep. Now that this deal is passed, what is the next frontier for republicans . Speaker mccarthy we have a number of things to do. We have to do appropriations. We have a lot of oversight work to do. I dont know if you followed fbi director wray. Now he says he would let us look at the document. There is a lot of problems. There is a lot more spending. I dont think the fbi deserves a building besides of the pentagon. There is a better way to spend that money. There is a lot of places to look that we can find savings. The border is still not secure. We passed the bill to the senate. We have an appropriations process. There is a lot of ways to get legislation at the same time. We will work every day. Every day i will wake up, try to improve from the day before and keep my eye on on what the American People want us to do. Yes . You put in a lot of work. You have forged deep relationships through these negotiations and build trust. I hope this isnt a naive western, but you did this through one of the most bitterly divided times in our history, is this a template that could be used for other issues in the white house like immigration . Speaker mccarthy look, there is a number of things. First, you have to secure the border before you do immigration reform. We tried hard to get some of that in here. We tried hard to be able to even reform further to become energy independent. And we commit to continue those discussions. We could get it all in here. But we have to lower the cost of energy for all americans. We could become energy independent. We could help the world. And we can lower global emissions around the world. If we simply replace russian natural gas in europe for one year, we would lower co2 emissions by more than 218 million tons. 218 in one year. We created more american jobs. We would make our economy stronger. We need to expand our grid. Garrett happens to be an expert at that. We did forge good relationships. I will tell you, the individuals from Yolanda Young to wish any, i have the utmost respect for them. They are bright, tough negotiators. They represented in a professional manner the whole time. Understand, this was not easy. This negotiation blew up a number of times. Where i wasnt sure, at times, we werent going to get somewhere. There were times that one side would say to the other, maybe we need to give up. Maybe we need someone different in the room. Maybe we are not doing something that you are not seeing it the way we are. But the one thing that happened is we didnt give up. We believed we could find a place. I know the country is divided. I watched congress divided today. I watched my own congress. My own conference. I will work to make sure everybody comes back. It might not be easy, but it is too important to let go. Hopefully we will not be doing this again until 2025. In the meantime, what is your message to voters as they look back on this historic moment in preparation for the next election . Speaker mccarthy it doesnt mean were going to wait just for the next debt ceiling to come. I didnt want to wait until the end days to do that. That is why i went to see the president february 1. But were not going to solve our debt problem trying to do it during a debt ceiling. Im putting a commission together, as a speaker, of republicans and democrats. America has done this before. We did it right after world war ii. We put a committee together of republicans and democrats, that looked at any place they had duplication. It was the last time we had hit debt at 102 of our gdp. They did it together. When they found duplications they could eliminate, they brought it directly to the floor. No amendment. Voted up, or put it down. We cant keep doing the same thing. We have to think differently. And we cant do it with just one party. We are all in this together. And im going to encourage the democratic leader to nominate and appoint people who will be serious. When we get the china select committee, we were able to work together. Thats why im coming back. I was going to ask about the fiscal commission. There would be a bill to establish this commission, and if so, when would you bring that to the floor . Speaker mccarthy im not sure i want to wait for a bill to pass the house and get stuck in the senate. The senate doesnt do much. So, i happen to be speaker. Why dont we just create it . Lets not wait. Lets do things. We dont need to keep studying. We dont need to keep waiting. The American People are tired of that. This is a new house, under new direction with a new focus, a focus on them. Following up on another question. If the Senate Passes an amendment, is the house prepared . Senate republicans said they want to offer amendments. Speaker mccarthy they can offer amendments, im not sure it will pass. We will take that as it goes. The houses here when they were supposed to be in session. Many are going home. But i doubt it will come back. What is your relationship with President Biden and how has that changed over this series of negotiations . White house officials came here, you have multiple meetings with the president himself, how has this changed your relationship . Speaker mccarthy he hasnt invited me to dinner or lunch yet. I respect anybody in the office. Its not an easy office. I understand what they are under. I just hope he doesnt sit back and ignore people when they want to work with you. I enjoyed working with his team. I enjoyed meeting with him. We are wide apart in philosophy. We are wide apart in the direction we want america to go. We have a much different understanding when it comes to revenue and expenditures. He has increased spending so much in america, it is the highest level we have ever spent in this country. While at the same time, we have the most money ever coming into this country, with the largest debt we ever had. It is not a revenue problem, its a spending problem. And all the president wants to do is keep raising taxes. We should take this time in history to have the highest revenue to be paying down debt, not spending more. We have a clear difference there. I respect him, i will debate him. I will work with him, if we can lower the debt. Mr. Speaker, when we talk about the Senate Taking this up later this week, you and your team have taken the lead on negotiations with the white house. The senate wasnt involved and you guys hashed out the deal. How is this working out when it moves the senate and we have republican senators saying they will stall the bill . Are you working with Senate Counterparts to encourage them to vote and get this signed into law . Speaker mccarthy the senate sat back and didnt produce anything. Ideally it would have been great if we produced something, and they produced something. They decided no, wait until the deadline and rush everything through. We think congress should act differently. We should be more responsible. We should be reasonable and sensible. Thats exactly what we did. Im sure they can pass the bill. Can you speak to former President Trump about this bill . If so, what did he say about it . Speaker mccarthy we didnt talk much about the bill. We dont want to end on that question. What are you going to do now when i walk out of my office . Are you still going to be there . [laughter] i might miss you one day, but the number this, i still look forward when you come back. And you know what, you still ask the same questions each week. Do you think you can pass the bill this week . Do you think you will still be speaker next week . Keep underestimating us, and we will keep improving the american repu