McCarthy is focused on the first few months in session, which he sees as critical. McCarthy vows change to save GOP

HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. — House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy landed here from Los Angeles with a bang: He bluntly warned that Republicans will blow the presidency in 2016 if they don’t make some radical changes — and quick.

McCarthy, speaking without a working microphone, told a group of Long Island donors that Republicans’ gains in the House will amount to little if they can’t govern over the next two years.


“I do know this,” McCarthy said. “If we don’t capture the House stronger, and the Senate, and prove we could govern, there won’t be a Republican president in 2016.”

The crowd groaned at his prediction. McCarthy feels the same.

( POLITICO's 2014 race ratings)

In a series of interviews with POLITICO in his office in D.C., in a Capitol Police SUV in New York and aboard a rented private jet flying above the Empire State, McCarthy, who became the No. 2 Republican in the House this summer, laid out in the richest detail yet his goals for a Republican-controlled Capitol Hill.

Legislative cliffs are over. One muscular, unified agenda will bridge both chambers. If he has his way, House and Senate Republicans will kick off the year at a joint retreat to get on the same page. He and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) have already been holding private dinners with lawmakers from both chambers to build relationships.

“You have a lot of new people over there and [they] don’t instinctively like the Senate to start with, which I get,” Thune said in an interview. “In the House, it’s a dynamic where you really have to work it. And we’re trying to do a better job of that.”

McCarthy’s vision is a departure from the past four years under former Majority Leader Eric Cantor, when brinkmanship and dysfunction ruled. Now, alienated voters must be won back for the GOP to have a shot at the White House in 2016.

( POLITICO's polling center)

“My belief is you have one chance to make a first impression,” McCarthy said, as his black SUV crawled eastward on Long Island. “From the very first day after the election, we should be laying out to the American public what the expectations are. Why make two different agendas?”

McCarthy is intently focused on the first few months in session, which he sees as critical for his agenda. He would like to use the lame-duck session to pass a long-term government-funding bill, so Washington can begin focusing on big-picture legislating, instead of just trying to keep government’s doors open. He also is aiming to renew a host of lapsed business-focused tax provisions and renew the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act — two items with bipartisan support.

“If we are fortunate to have both majorities, take away any cliff you can have hanging out there,” McCarthy said, sitting in his SUV fiddling with an iPhone and Blackberry. “If you have a cliff, it takes attention away. Why put cliffs up that hold us back from doing bigger policy?”

The party’s ability to coalesce around large-scale legislation is certainly in doubt, but McCarthy seems willing to pass small-bore bills on issues ranging from energy to health care to taxes. He sees it as a way to draw constant contrasts with President Barack Obama and to split Democrats. Maybe Obama will sign some bills into law, he says. If he doesn’t, it will set up a clean discussion for the 2016 presidential election.

( Full 2014 election results)

Energy policy will be a priority, in addition to repealing the medical device tax and the independent payment board for Medicare — bills that Democrats have mostly ignored over the past few years. Highway spending will likely come up, McCarthy said, and it could be funded by new drilling on public lands.

Of course, critics inside and outside the Republican establishment say the party’s revival is dependent not only on a functioning Congress, but also on passing policies like immigration reform — an uncertain prospect in a Republican-controlled Congress.

McCarthy left open the possibility of passing an overhaul of immigration laws but said if Obama “tried to do it by executive order, that’s the worst way,” and it would “stop everything.”

Inside Washington, McCarthy sees himself re-imagining government. He fashions himself as a D.C. disruptor, of sorts.

One of his chief goals is to rework the federal bureaucracy. In his travel throughout more than 100 congressional districts, McCarthy says he has sensed a great distrust in the federal government. He says voters are frustrated with Obama’s handling of Ebola, the health care law, the IRS and Secret Service scandals. And that’s why he is setting up a congressional mechanism to whittle away at inefficiencies that plague the government. He likens his plans to the commission that shut down underused military bases. He wonders why many city governments operate online and the federal government still conducts business on paper.

( QUIZ: How well do you know Kevin McCarthy?)

Efficiency in governing is important for McCarthy, which is why he says he wants a governor as the 2016 GOP nominee, and, when asked which state executive he likes, he mentioned Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder.

His rearranging of Washington won’t spare the Capitol. He is looking to audit the congressional committee structure, rework the way Congress writes the nation’s budget and plans to, once and for all, sync the Senate and House’s schedules to improve efficiency. He also wants the House out of session on days besides Friday, so lawmakers can be around their hometowns during the week. And House committees, he said, should be doing far more fieldwork.

Of course, McCarthy’s vision is predicated on a Republican majority in both chambers. But he’s bullish on that. He privately tells donors he believes there’s a “75 percent” chance the GOP will take the Senate.

A departure from the past

McCarthy’s ascent was sudden — he’s been majority leader only since Aug. 1 — so much of Washington is waiting to see how he shapes and molds his power. He has been working to get up to speed on policy — he’s not much of a wonk.

He is sure to cut a different image than Cantor, his predecessor and good friend. The two are still close, and McCarthy isn’t eager to draw direct contrasts, but the differences are obvious. McCarthy is already meeting more with committee chairmen, and he wants near universal buy in on legislation. He wants committee chairmen to seek input from the rank and file early in the bill-drafting conference so problems don’t surface when legislation hits the floor. “As a majority,” he said, “you should be able to solve your problems ahead of time.”

McCarthy has learned from his sometimes rocky tenure as whip — and from Cantor’s time as majority leader. The Californian says that “having been whip before leader makes me a better leader.”

“The one thing I’ve viewed as all the problems being in leadership is that the conference sits there and thinks, ‘Well, the leader picks and choose and [we] take the blame,’” McCarthy said. “If you notice, since I became leader, I put more buy in for people. The part I’ve watched from being the whip, the challenges I had there, [bills] came [to the floor] before members knew what they were, or before we could vet them. I was trying to force something that we could’ve passed with more votes if we had it earlier.”

Follow @politico

West Coast inspiration

McCarthy’s desire to change Washington has roots in Silicon Valley, where the majority leader spends a lot of time. He frequently shuttles future congressional leaders to the Bay Area — Republicans like Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Mike Pompeo of Kansas and Susan Brooks of Indiana — for tours of businesses and “free-flowing discussions” in the evening. He counts billionaire Elon Musk as a friend and has introduced Republicans to luminaries like Mark Zuckerberg and top executives at companies like Oracle.

It’s inspired McCarthy to think differently — and expansively — about Washington.

“We’re a century behind, you know?” McCarthy said, sitting on a private jet with his feet propped up on a leather chair. “We’re dealing with a rotary phone.”

He’s grown frustrated with government, and now, with the levers of power in front of him, he is planning changes.

He has already begun to assign two lawmakers to study each government agency and likens the process to the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which shuttered military installations across the country. He also wants to “audit” the House committee structure, which, he points out, has not been truly overhauled since the Republican revolution of 1994. It’s a power play, intended to show he’s not interested in maintaining the status quo.

“Is the committee structure we came up with in 1994, and before that in the ’50s, really what’s best today?” McCarthy said. “Maybe, but you don’t know. We should audit them. Accountability matters.”

Also in McCarthy’s cross hairs: the congressional budget process. He thinks writing a budget each year is antiquated and said Congress should consider budgeting once every two years. Also, he wants to reform the Congressional Budget Office so it studies the impact of legislation over, say, 20 years, instead of 10. He said Congress oftentimes gets “stuck in our subcommittees,” and he wants to “start looking at what we’re doing in the next 50 years.” McCarthy says Washington is frozen because the “structure holds us back.”

“The ideas are great,” McCarthy said, “but what stops the ideas from becoming law? Some of the archaic things we do.”

McCarthy added, with a hefty dose of incredulity, “The budget act is the Budget Act of 1974. Does the world look like it did in ’74?”

McCarthy is ambitious, but his ambitions are tempered somewhat by his home state of California. A gubernatorial bid would be difficult, to say the least, as would a Senate run. In Glens Falls, a man approached McCarthy urging him to run for president in 2020. He said he’s lucky to have the job he has today. But, with Speaker John Boehner’s career winding down, McCarthy might find himself in the speaker’s chair sooner than he expected.

All of these inside-the-Beltway guessing games fall away when McCarthy is on the trail. His everyman demeanor, tireless work ethic and fundraising prowess makes him an attractive surrogate.

He typically travels with just one aide and a hefty Capitol Police detail. On long drives, he is constantly text messaging, emailing and talking on the phone — chatting with both colleagues and his wife. He slips into restaurants unnoticed, just another middle-aged man with a head of wavy gray hair.

On this trip, McCarthy traversed a good bit of the Empire State before headed east to Maine and then to New York City. Before flying north to Glens Falls — a small town outside Albany — where he appeared outside of a bar on behalf of Elise Stefanik, McCarthy traveled nearly the entire length of Long Island. In addition to appearing in the nightclub in Hauppauge, McCarthy was candidate Lee Zeldin’s surprise guest at a sportsman’s club event in Manorville, where he spoke in a wood-paneled room on a stage framed by two bulls’ heads. A massive elephant’s head was posted on the wall facing McCarthy, its tusks jutting sharply toward the stage.

At most events, McCarthy talks about illegally flipping used cars as a teenager — “I’m an entrepreneur,” he jokes — winning the lottery; investing in stocks, and, later, in a deli; and subsequently getting elected to the House seat for which he could not get an internship.

“I took the majority of the [lottery] money and bought one stock. I believe in taking risk,” McCarthy said. “But I also believe if I failed, I didn’t expect government to bail me out. But if I succeeded, I didn’t think government would take my money.”

He likens the political climate today to that of the 1970s: the last time an ambassador was killed overseas, the last time Russia invaded another country and the last permeation of the word “malaise.” He always invites the group he’s talking to to his office in D.C. He promises them a tour of his office and says he can watch their local congressman get sworn in.

He is able to change his tone on a dime. At the hunting club, where he appeared as a surprise guest with Zeldin, McCarthy became a red-meat-tossing champion of the NRA.

“I come from a part of California that may be a bit different than what most of you probably envision,” he said. “Place called Bakersfield. Home of Buck Owens, Merle Haggard — this is where we earn our living from the land. From agriculture, from oil and aerospace. … We drive pickups, the No. 1-selling car, and it has a gun rack in the back.”

McCarthy reminded the group that his Democratic contemporary is Nancy Pelosi, also of California. And Zeldin’s opponent, longtime New York Rep. Tim Bishop, “votes for Nancy,” McCarthy said.

“You think Nancy would ever be in this room?” he said, as beer-sipping listeners shook their heads. “Would she have the same views as you have?”

Pelosi’s Democrats don’t have a prayer of unseating McCarthy’s Republican majority, but he is keenly aware that they just might keep the Senate. And all of McCarthy’s planning — his ideas, dreams and carefully laid strategy — would go out the window. He doesn’t think much of the Obama administration. He chats with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough but hasn’t heard from the president.

Obama, McCarthy says, has difficulty “coming to an agreement.” Vice President Joe Biden, he added, is able to do “more in 36 hours than [Obama] did in three months.”

When asked about the prospect of Democrats controlling the Senate, he seemed visibly frustrated.

“Ahh, it’s tough,” he said. “If it stays Democratic, it’s going to be a frustrating time.”

Manu Raju contributed to this report.