CNN "State of the Union" - TRANSCRIPT Interview With Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX); Interview With Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA); Interview With Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX); Interview With Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX); Aired 9-10a ET

Interview

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In short, McCarthy has the title he's always wanted, but not necessarily the power that used to come with it. He got a win, but his mandate is less assured. McCarthy required the better part of a week to grind down the conservative opposition to his speaker bid and the way things had been done in the House for decades.

One of the holdouts, Republican Congressman Chip Roy of Texas, was instrumental in delivering him the gavel. Roy negotiated a laundry list of concessions from McCarthy designed to spread power among the House rank and file, and particularly the House Freedom Caucus.

And Roy's deal ultimately flipped up to 15 votes for McCarthy, paving the way for his victory Friday night.

Joining me now for his first interview after the speaker election is Texas Republican Congressman Chip Roy.

First of all, congratulations on everything that happened and getting what you wanted in the negotiations. It's not -- it's not necessarily a sure thing that that happens.

We're just learning some of the promises McCarthy made, capping spending at 2022 levels for fiscal year 2024, a subcommittee to investigate the Justice Department, more Freedom Caucus representation on important committees like the Rules Committee, a one-member threshold for a motion to vacate, which is what it used to be before 2019.

What other commitments did McCarthy make that you can tell us about?

REP. CHIP ROY (R-TX): Well, first of all, let's remember that a little temporary conflict is necessary in this town in order to stop this town from rolling over the American people.

I don't think anybody on either side of the aisle could say with a straight face that they think that Washington is doing good work for the American people on a regular basis and isn't broken. We have to work to fix this place.

And, look, some of the tensions you saw on display when you saw some of the interactions there between Mike Rogers and Matt Gaetz, some of that is, we need a little of that. We need a little of this sort of breaking the glass in order to get us to the table, in order for us to fight for the American people, and to change the way this place is dysfunctional.

So, this all started going back last summer. We wanted rules to open this place up. We wanted more transparency. We wanted more openness, more ability to add amendments to the floor. So, for example, you asked, what else did we get?

We got amendments to be able to -- I mean, I'm sorry. We got the ability to offer amendments on the floor of the House during appropriations that will open it up again. We haven't done that. So, since I have been in Congress, I have not been able to offer an amendment on the floor.

There hasn't been an amendment offered in open debate since May of 2016. We changed it.

TAPPER: Is it a free-for-all? Like, anyone can offer an amendment?

ROY: Absolutely, within appropriations.

We will also be striving for more open rules. We put more conservatives, some Freedom Caucus members -- and we're still working through who those will be -- on the Rules Committee, the powerful Rules Committee, which is the funnel by which legislation gets to the floor of the House.

But, importantly, we were trying to stand up for rank-and-file members, because, too often -- and we saw this in December -- too often, bills are cooked up with a handful of people, they're brought through to the Rules Committee, jammed through, put on the floor, and you have to vote yes or no.

[09:05:04]

The American people are tired of that. We need to be able to see some of the stuff we got to see this week. You and I were talking ahead of time, cameras, because C-SPAN control the cameras.

TAPPER: Do you -- are you in favor of that? Because I love the C-SPAN cameras.

ROY: Look, I think drawing the American people into the conversation, into the debate on the floor, I mean, if you're going to have cameras there, well, let's look at the action.

Let's see...

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TAPPER: So, you're in favor of transparency? C-SPAN gets to control that.

ROY: Well, I would -- let me go look into the ins and outs of all of that. But I think it is -- what the American people were able to see unfold on the floor was a good thing for our democracy and our republic, right?

It was a good thing for people to be able to see the inner workings. And this isn't just the shirts and skins, red and blue, two-team thing. This is history, because this hasn't happened in the last 100 years. But understand why that's so. Two-party entrenchment has made it to where we don't have a good back-and-forth to sit at the table and try to accomplish this.

TAPPER: Yes.

So I'm all in favor of transparency. I'm a journalist. I want everything out. So, I hope you will look into the C-SPAN thing, because -- because I think that really does show the American people.

ROY: Yes.

TAPPER: I don't think it's a bad thing to show Democrats and Republicans, tough negotiations, et cetera.

Will -- in the name of transparency, will you or the speaker put out a list of the concessions, of these changes, because they're not all -- as you know, they're not all reflected in the rules that are going to come up for a vote this week?

ROY: Sure.

I mean, again, part of this is all sensitive, right, as you're kind of going through it and kind of holding everybody together. And we got to get through the rules on Monday. And we're going through the steering process of getting folks on committees.

But, for example, when we say we wanted -- and we -- and, Jake, we put out a list in, what, December 8, trying -- saying, hey, here's what we think we need to change transform this place. Here's what we need to see in any speaker.

And so we have been out and open about that. But I want to make clear this isn't about trying to -- Chip Roy wants a spot on a committee. I haven't been promised anything. Literally, I have got nothing out of this deal for me personally.

Does that mean I might end up on a Rules Committee? Maybe, if that's what the -- my colleagues want. We still have to go through that process. But what we have extracted are the promises from the speaker to make sure that we have ideological diversity and representation among these committees.

Appropriations, there are two Freedom Caucus members out of 33 that are likely to be in the majority. So think about that. HFC is 20 percent of the body, yet two of 33 appropriators. The Rules Committee, it's always a struggle to get anybody on there who's going to push back in the Rules Committee about, wait, why are we jamming a bill through that nobody's read?

TAPPER: Right.

ROY: So, let's get representation on these committees. And it's not about petty personal desires.

I don't want to be on the Rules Committee.

TAPPER: Right.

ROY: I don't leave my family on Sunday night and miss my kids to come up here. But I might do it, if that's what my colleagues decide.

TAPPER: So, let me ask you a question about whether or not the -- whatever you want to call it, the chaos, the back-and-forth, the...

ROY: Yes.

TAPPER: Whether or not this is going to mark what the Congress is going to look like going forward over the next two years.

McCarthy promised -- one of the promises was not to raise the debt ceiling without some accompanying spending cuts.

ROY: Right.

TAPPER: Congress had a similar showdown, trying to force spending cuts in 2011.

ROY: Yes.

TAPPER: It led to America's credit rating getting downgraded because the mark -- because they weren't able to arrive at a deal. The markets felt the U.S. government had become, according to the downgrading -- quote -- "less stable, less effective, less predictable."

And that had a real tangible, detrimental effect on the American people and their pocketbooks, their retirement savings. What's the plan to make sure that doesn't happen again, that the chaos we saw this week, or whatever you want to call it...

ROY: Yes.

TAPPER: ... doesn't become just what happens every time, especially when we're talking about major must-pass legislation like raising the debt ceiling, which is just about paying the bills for what has already been paid?

ROY: Well, the fastest way to guarantee that we have debt rating problems is to keep spending money we don't have and keep piling up debt. And that's what we're doing.

The uniparty in Washington, Republicans and Democrats, the power brokers, which, by the way, are reflected by Mike Rogers, when he goes in and he's pushing back on the...

TAPPER: He says: "I will finish you," he said.

ROY: Right.

So, why is that? Because when you push back on the swamp, the swamp is going to push right back. We saw that on display. That's OK. So, you say, well, are we going to have this kind of conflict going forward? I hope so.

But we started this now. It's January. So the debt ceiling -- or the debate is going to be in a few months. Let's do it now, guys.

TAPPER: Right.

ROY: Let's get this out there, both sides of the aisle, everybody within each party. Let's figure out how we're going to actually fix this, because the American people are sick of us not doing our job.

TAPPER: There is a bigger risk, though, for the U.S. defaulting on the debt ceiling, when it comes to the debt ceiling vote, then some short-term embarrassment for Kevin McCarthy.

That's the -- the default is a bigger deal and could actually cost billions of dollars.

ROY: Understood. Understood.

But, remember, in 2011, when that cut, cap and balance was negotiated and put in place -- and, frankly, it worked for four or five years to constrain spending. Now, it had some side effects. Defense spending was getting whacked pretty good. And we don't want to see that. We want to be able to figure out how we can get this going the right way to make sure defense is protected.

[09:10:00]

But we need to put limits on spending and then get to the table. You have to do that at home, Jake. I have to do that at home. Every American has to do that. If we don't stop spending money we don't have, I promise you we will never sit at a table.

Colin Allred, who is to going be on here a little bit, that I was talking to in the green room, Colin and I need to be able to sit at a table and figure out how we're going to fix this for the country.

TAPPER: Yes.

ROY: We can't do that if the leaders jam through $1.7 trillion omnibus bills, like happened in December, where we have no debate on the floor.

TAPPER: Right.

ROY: We have to open this debate up, offer amendments, do our work, limit spending within our means, and then move the country forward.

TAPPER: If McCarthy fails to offer a debt ceiling bill that all has offsetting spending cuts, if he offers what the Democrats in the Senate want, which is a clean bill, would you vote to vacate the speakership?

Because it will now be able to be one person making that motion to vacate the speaker?

ROY: Look, I'm not going to -- I'm not going to play the what if games on how we're going to use the tools of the House to make sure that we enforce the terms of the agreement, but we will use the tools of the House to enforce the terms of the agreement.

TAPPER: Will you negotiate with Democrats in the Senate?

ROY: Sure.

TAPPER: Because, as you know, this isn't just about you negotiating with Kevin McCarthy.

ROY: Yes.

TAPPER: Kevin McCarthy's much more conservative...

ROY: Sure.

TAPPER: ... however much you think he is actually a conservative, compared to the people who run the Senate, which are the Democrats, or the White House, which is Joe Biden.

ROY: Right.

Well remember that, in 2011, Obama was in the White House, and we got cut, cap and balance, because we took it to the American people. The American people were tired of the status quo. We took the message to them, and we forced change.

Our point is, let's fight now to end the status quo. Let's get in the rooms now. Republicans should send good appropriations bills over to the House, make Chuck Schumer reject them. Let's send a good appropriations bill funding our men and women in uniform, who you, so grateful -- and I'm grateful that you support them so much.

Let's go send them a good bill. Let's go send a good homeland security bill. Let's go send legislation. If Chuck Schumer doesn't want to pass those, then it's on him.

TAPPER: Yes.

ROY: Let's come back to the table and let's talk about it. But let's do our part to balance the budget, do our job and put everything on the table for everybody to sit down and do the work of the American people.

TAPPER: In these talks, in these negotiations, did Kevin McCarthy or his emissaries ever say anything when it came to cuts or caps on Medicare and Social Security?

ROY: So, what we're talking about here, just so everybody knows, is setting the spending at the FY22 levels, which would be, what, $1.471 trillion.

And then let's all sit down and figure out how we're going to do...

TAPPER: So, all of it?

ROY: So, well, let's sit down and how we're going to spend on that discretionary spending.

What we have been very clear about is, we're not going to touch the benefits that are going to people relying on the benefits under Social Security and Medicare. But we all have to be honest about sitting at the table and figuring out how we're going to make those work, how we're going to deal with defense spending and how we're going to deal with nondefense discretionary spending.

But we have got to spend with -- or hold spending within our means. But remember also in this deal this was about empowering people, empowering rank-and-file members. We -- as we said, we got the 72-hour rule to read bills. We are now going to be able to offer amendments on the floor of the House.

We got germaneness and single subjects, so you don't get these multisubject bills that pile on. And we have got more empowerment for everybody on these committees. I believe we will have the ability to transform the conversation right now to make sure that we try to avoid hitting a stalemate later in the year, but only if we do our work now to do it.

TAPPER: All right, Congressman Chip Roy, Republican of Texas, thanks so much for being here.

ROY: Thanks, Jake.

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