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Interview

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Joining me now is Republican Congressman Tim Burchett of Tennessee. And we should note to our viewers, you can see him right here on the left side of the screen of this photo you're looking at, as Congressman Rogers lunged over. We should note CNN has reached out to Rogers' office for comment, invited him on the program. We have not heard back.

But Congressman Burchett is with us, and thanks so much for doing that.

You know, Congressman, you know, we're used to seeing scenes play out like this in other countries. We don't see it happen on the House floor in the United States very often. Obviously people were exhausted last night, tempers were flaring. It was late at night. Tell us what you saw. What was happening in the lead up to this moment?

REP. TIM BURCHETT (R-TN): Well, you're correct, it was very late. Realize that both sides have some older members, and it was getting late. And I suspect most of them had missed the early bird special at the Sizzler's so they were getting a little cantankerous. And Mike, who's a friend of mine, came by and said some things, probably in haste, as a lot of us do and probably responded to him in some things, as well.

And Matt had -- Matt Gaetz had asked to review some of those rules before we voted on speaker, and he felt like he wasn't given enough time to do just that, and asked for a little more time. And you can see me later in one of the tapes going like that because I'd asked -- I'd asked our leadership to give us a little bit of a break so we could put our heads together and go over some of those things.

It was just an unfortunate situation. And that's what happens when people are tired and you -- as you said, it was the 15th ballot that we were able to pass. ACOSTA: Yes. But what was going through your mind when you saw

Congressman Rogers being restrained? Just being there at this moment?

BURCHETT: Yes. Well, you can see one of the earlier pictures where I'd actually stiff armed him, and, you know, I knew he'd lost his cool. It's the second time he'd done that that week. He'd done it earlier in a conference meeting and made some similar demands toward some of us. And it was unfortunate. You know, it's one of those regrettable things. But it's something that will be -- it will be remembered. I don't think it should take away anything from leader -- then leader, now-Speaker McCarthy's victory because it was hard fought.

You know, and I think something you also have to remember is that Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz had worked around the clock with several members of the Freedom Caucus to get some of these rules in place, and there were some excellent rules. Some of those things. You know, you mentioned the vacate the chair with one person. That was actually in place since the '20s, and Speaker Pelosi had taken that out.

So other things that we do in the Tennessee -- we did in the Tennessee legislature in my 16 years, some transparency items. You're putting more fiscally conservative members on things like the Rules Committee. And if you remember, the transportation bill was a huge, huge bill, over $1 trillion, and it was passed out of committee after a 16-hour markup of the bill. And then it went to the speaker's office, and she with some help of some lobbyists and some advisers actually rewrote the entire bill.

And then it was put on the floor without any debate. And we weren't allowed to amend it at any step further. So these things that were put into place that Matt Gaetz fought very hard and Lauren Boebert and some of us fought very hard to put into place are things that will prevent things like that from happening in the future. So I don't think it was --

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BURCHETT: Go ahead.

ACOSTA: Yes, that was what I was going to ask because, you know, I was wondering whether or not, because Gaetz was one of the last holdouts, whether you had felt in any way he had been antagonizing some of his colleagues to the point where something like that was likely to happen. It sounds like you don't put this on Gaetz.

BURCHETT: I don't. I don't. You know, he's a member. He has a right. He represents a constituency. If you ever go down to that very nice area of Florida where he -- my wife and I occasionally get to go down there about once every two years, down in the Destin area.

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He is very popular down there. And the reason he is is because he's an independent thinker. He's an attorney. And he stands up for his people. And that's what he was doing. That's what all 435 of us should do. And also he made a commitment to Lauren Boebert that they -- that he would not fold until the rules package, in fact, he was able to read it. And that's -- like I said, where you see that, we had talked about taking a one-hour break, adjourn for one hour. And that's what we were trying to work out.

And then we were just going to adjourn and come back on Monday. And Matt -- you can see where he and I are talking, and Lauren and he are talking. And he decided in fact that -- and Leader McCarthy had come up and literally promised him that we were -- we'd work through all that. And Matt took Leader McCarthy at his word. They'd had some words during the week, and Matt had said some things on the floor about the leader.

And I think speaker -- now-Speaker McCarthy would like to make those things right. And I think he will. And I think -- go ahead. I'm sorry.

ACOSTA: No, I was going to follow up on that because, you know, one of the things that Congressman Gaetz has said is that, you know, because of some of these concessions that Speaker McCarthy had to make that it's going to be like running the House in a straightjacket. Do you think it's going to be impossible to govern, impossible to preside over the House for the upcoming speaker -- the incoming speaker because of some of these concessions? I mean, all it takes is one member to go to the House floor --

BURCHETT: One partisan, sure.

ACOSTA: Right. Couldn't Matt Gaetz do this next week? Start it all over again?

BURCHETT: He could do it every day, but it's just a vote of confidence is what it is. And it would be a simple majority. So I thinking being in leadership and being able to control the floor vote is a key thing, and of course the whip, our new whip who was Steve Scalise, now it's Tom Emert, will do an excellent job. Guy Reschenthaler is his number two man. He and I came together. They have an excellent, excellent working machine on that. They know how to work the floor and they do it very well.

But I think it literally, I really do, think it holds the speaker accountable to the people, to the real people. I mean, it is called the people's House for a reason. And that thing was in place since the '20s. And we never had a problem with it up until then, and there have been some very tight majorities and minorities. First the Republicans, then Democrats.

Jim, I think it just puts the people more in charge of their house, which it should. You don't have a bully --

ACOSTA: Let me ask you.

BURCHETT: Go ahead. Sorry.

ACOSTA: Yes. Let me ask you this. When it was all over, the speaker, Kevin McCarthy, thanked former President Donald Trump for playing a part in this, playing a role in this. Let's take a listen.

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ACOSTA: Setting aside that last part of what Speaker McCarthy said that the former president would like to see the country come together, I think a lot of Americans would probably sharply disagree with that. Very likely and definitely sharply disagree with that. But do you agree that it was a good idea to have the former president play a role in all this?

BURCHETT: I can't speak for Trump, honestly. I know that Gaetz and Boebert did not receive a call from him, at least when I was sitting there with them. So maybe some other members did, and if that influenced them in a positive way, I think that's a -- that would be a great thing. Just everybody's -- everybody is adding on a positive category. And you know, victory has 100 fathers and defeat is an orphan.

So pile on for all I care. I don't care who called, I was just glad -- I was glad to see Kevin McCarthy -- you know, I voted for him 15 times. So there was no question my loyalty of any of that. And so -- but I was -- I also met with him early on, and I made very similar requests that the Freedom Caucus did. And I received about 85 percent of what I'd asked for to make it --

ACOSTA: You're not worried, Congressman, that this looks like your party is not ready for primetime.

BURCHETT: No, heck no, brother. Honestly, Jim, and we miss you in Knoxville, brother. But the truth is, is that --

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ACOSTA: I miss everybody down there in Knoxville, too. But yes.

BURCHETT: Yes, sir. We -- I had more debate this week in Congress, more meaningful debate, more intermingling. I would go over and talk on the Democrat side, I talked to my friends in the Squad, AOC and Omar and all of them, and Speaker Pelosi came down and sat beside me, checked on my daughter who got hurt in a little horse accident because she has a granddaughter, whose name -- her name is Isabella and my daughter's name is Isabelle. And she asked me about my wife, Kelly.

It gave us time to interact. We actually interacted more this week than we have in the last four years. And if anything, I think that relationship building is where it's at. When I used to be in the state legislature we had very -- I can't remember, the last couple of years I was at my 16 years we were in the majority. But it really didn't change much because we worked together across the aisle.

Steve Cohen who is probably as far to the left as I am to the right, out of Memphis, he and I worked when I was in the legislature. We raised the speed limit together, you know. He called my mama when my daddy died. We have those kind of relationships. And I think this week a lot of that -- a lot of those barriers dissolved. At least a little bit.

And so, you know, it's always going to be -- democracy's not a pretty thing sometimes. It's ugly. Sometimes it's just a knock down drag-out. But maybe that's what we need to get to where we're at. And I think the country is going to be well served, I honestly do.

ACOSTA: All right. Congressman Tim Burchett, we'll be watching. We'll see. Hopefully there aren't too many more of those knockdown drag- outs. But in full disclosure to our viewers, I was once a local reporter there at Knoxville, Tennessee, at WBIR-TV. So that's what the former mayor and now congressman is referring to.

Congressman, thanks so much for your time. We appreciate it.

BURCHETT: Thank you, brother. It's always a pleasure.

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