ABC "This Week" - TRANSCRIPT 'This Week' Transcript 1-8-23: Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas, Rep. Scott Perry, Rep. Andy Barr and U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn

Interview

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STEPHANOPOULOS: And we are joined now by Congressman Andy Barr.

Congressman Barr, let me begin with you. You're with Speaker McCarthy right from the start. You're one of his strongest allies. Are you concerned that he gave away too much in order to get the gavel?

REP. ANDY BARR (R-KY): George, I'm really not, and I understand the American people's frustration with the delay in electing a speaker. Certainly, it's going to be a challenge to have a conference full of independent thinkers with a thin majority.

But, you know, not only did the framers of our Constitution expect us to debate the operations of the House and the House rules and how we're going to function. That's what a healthy democracy actually requires.

And if you want to understand what happened on the House floor last week, you have to understand why the American people fired Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats and elected a new Republican majority. It's because what Scott said, because Speaker Pelosi used the pandemic to lock down the House of Representatives, to use proxy voting and remote committee proceedings to consolidate power in herself and a few other leaders at the expense of rank and file members and the millions of Americans that they represented to eliminate transparency, to write thousand-page omnibus spending bills behind closed doors.

And so, the dysfunction was in the prior Congress. And the process that we went through this week was quite healthy from the standpoint of getting all of these issues resolved now, so that we can have a template going forward to come together as a conference.

We proved to ourselves, George, that we can with perseverance and a lot of hard work and a never give up attitude, we can come together and unify to advance our agenda. It will be a challenge, no doubt about it, with the diversity of opinions within our conference. But that was what was happening last week was to forge a consensus so that when reach issues like the debt limit, when we reach challenges, we've proven to ourselves that we can come together, we can set aside our differences and ultimately compromise to be an effective majority.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Did you really resolve them now, that any single member can bring a motion to vacate the speaker's office? You have -- the Freedom Caucus has been given basically a third of the positions on the Rules Committee which will undermine Speaker McCarthy's authority.

Aren't you simply setting up a situation on every major spending bill, anything having to do with the debt limit, anything having to do with keeping the government open, you're going to be back in the same situation again?

BARR: Well, let's be clear, George, remember, this motion to vacate was only altered by Speaker Pelosi. We're just going back to the pre-Pelosi rule that was in place since 1910. I don't think that's an issue at all in terms of creating chaos. I think it's what the House has had ever term before Pelosi came into power.

The other thing about diversity of opinion on committees, I actually think this is going to strengthen us and not weaken us as a conference. It's going to bring us together.

If there are issues, if there's a difference of opinion, you want those differences of opinion be aired in committee on the front end, because you don't want those difficulties when the bill comes out of committee on the House floor.

Let's have the opportunity to have an open amendment process in committee so that you forge that consensus at the beginning of the legislative process, so that the bills that are brought to House floor actually have a meaningful chance of passing.

Again, this is why I think going through the difficulties of last week will serve this majority well. It will make us a more effective majority.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But -- but -- but didn't the agreement also include an open amendment process on the floor, which sort of undermines that entire premise, doesn't it?

BARR: Well, I think -- look, as you pointed out, I'm a strong supporter of Kevin McCarthy for speaker. I think last week his patience, his willingness to be open minded and listen to all members, his good humor, the fact that he was -- he was humble in his leadership style, his perseverance, all of those qualities were on full display for the American people. It's precisely why he does need to be speaker in this majority.

But what I would say is, those of us who were with him from the start, and those like Scott who came onboard with some of the changes and reforms later on, I think we all agree that we need a better process and I think we ended up a stronger majority as a result of some of the reforms that were put into place. And -- and I think we -- we all are committed to being unified going forward.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Congressman Barr, thanks for your time this morning.

BARR: Good to be with you.

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