During a Sunday appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” California Republican member of Congress and former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy warned of the potential of terrorist “sleeper cells” being inside the US and ready to wage war on Americans as the US sides with Israel in the budding Israel-Hamas conflict.
Particularly, former Speaker McCarthy referred to a report from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that shows 18 individuals on the FBI’s terror watch list were apprehended at the US-Mexico border in September alone. Their detention brings the year’s total to over 160 individuals on the terror watch list caught, with numerous others likely having evaded border security forces along the porous southern border.
Speaking about that, former Speaker McCarthy said, “But if you simply look at what’s the chaos right now, a wide-open southern border. I’m concerned about a cell sitting inside America today. We just caught 18 people just last month on the FBI terrorist watch list coming across our border. More than 160 have done it this year.”
He continued, “When we’re looking around the Middle East and the uprisings popping up around Europe and others, they could be sleeper cells right now in America. But this administration [hasn’t done anything] to change what’s happening on the southern border.”
McCarthy did not explain why, if he is so concerned about the border, he did not make shutting it down and beginning a deportation program an inviolable criteria for GOP acceptance of a budget deal, as he could have done as Speaker of the House.
Instead, he defended Establishment GOP Speaker pick Tom Emmer, saying, “We got government funding where our troops wouldn’t be paid sitting here in a month. Tom Emmer has been a part of our successes from not just winning the majority but being in the room to help us pass a border security bill to make us energy independent, Parents Bill of Rights to stand up when the Democrats wanted to defund the police and decriminalize some of those laws. And he has been successful. This is not a time for a learning experience as speaker.”
He also defended the budget deal that cost him his speakership, one which did not defend the border to the degree many conservatives want, saying, “I would do the exact same thing again. Could you imagine if we were having this discussion right now with the American government shut down with our troops in the Middle East, wondering when they’ll ever get paid again? Keeping the government open was the right decision to make, and I’d make it again each and every day.”
The former speaker also suggested he thinks America should take a stronger line with Iran, saying, “We have to destroy Hamas. But you cannot do it without confronting Iran. They need to change their policies. Iran only had $4 billion in the foreign exchange when they took office. They now have 70 billion.” Why American troops should be risked fighting Iran was unclear, other than that he sees it as a great threat to Israel.
Watch McCarthy here:
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