will be doing great harm to hundreds of thousands of people and families in our country, and i hope that pain will be a part of their consideration, because they have to consider the impact. and i hope that they will understand the blessing to america that our newcomers are, and i hope the senate will pass h.r. 6. thank you. [overlapping conversations] >> next, house minority leader kevin mccarthy talks about the first day of the public impeachment inquiry hearing.

[overlapping conversations] mr. mccarthy: close, close? >> standard atlantic time. rep. mccarthy: i'd like to start this monday was veterans day. i was able to be home. i was able to be grand marshall in our 100th veterans day parade. i want to thank those veterans for the freedom they provided us, the service they have given. it would have been nice this week we would pass appropriation bills for our troops, for their pay raise, for the funding to make sure they're safe and protected on the job that they have to do. but unfortunately, this week is just about impeachment. the public was able to see what this democrat majority has been

working on for the last three years, just impeachment. i want to recognize the republican members and staff of the intelligence committee. i thought they did a great job yesterday. with poise and purpose, they brought forth the truth out to the public after weeks of adam schiff keeping them in the dark. we didn't walk out of yesterday's hearing with any new information than we already walked in. so let me quickly recap what we do know. the call summary is still the most important piece of evidence we have. and it shows no pressure or even mention of conditionality between the two leaders. the ukrainians did not know that security assistance was under review until over a month after the call. the full assistance was provided , and no investigation was opened. we did hear from the witnesses was that they had never spoken to president trump, they had not met with the chief of staff, their understanding, which is the foundation of the case for the democrats, was based on second-hand information. remember what yesterday was. the democrats had homefield advantage. they got to change the course of the rules of how to handle a meeting itself. they got to pick the witnesses

they wanted. and they tabled the opportunity for a whistleblower to come forward and even protect that person's identity while they presented to the committee. with all of that, we found out nothing new. one of the witnesses actually admitted, "what i can do for you here today is tell you what i heard from people." this lacks basic explanation of fact witnesses. those witnesses did rely on their expertise, though, to underscore how much safer ukraine is today under this administration with president trump. after russia invaded ukraine, the previous administration sent thermal blankets. the trump administration sent tank-busting bombs.

so i'll refer back to what speaker pelosi said earlier this year just in march about impeachment. you all recall that. that this is so divisive to our country that it has to be so compelling, so overwhelming, and bipartisan. otherwise, we should not put our country through it. i think speaker pelosi should hold to her own words. there's nothing compelling. there's nothing overwhelming. and the only bipartisan vote we had was to end impeachment. but apparently she doesn't stick with her word. i thought what was most ironic was the setting, the ways and means committee room. democrats on that dais tried to spend their entire day to discredit this president's and this administration's foreign policy and their success. not only were they wrong, they did it while hijacking a committee where we decide on our trade policy. they did it while having ways and means, where the usmca, united states-mexcio-canada mexico and canada trade agreement, can only make our top two traders stronger as we have

negotiations with china. it only emphasized, again, what is not being done in congress and what should be being done in congress. impeachment has overtaken every single committee. we are less than a year away from the election, but these democrats do not trust the american public. they will continue to try to make something up when we have the facts of the phone call. we know there was no pressure to either leader, and the money was released. and ukraine is actually stronger today with a new administration leading america. with that, let me open up to questions. yes, sir. james: thank you, mr. leader james rosen. , i wonder if you can explain to the american people why they shouldn't see -- on the part of house republicans to hear you assert, on the one hand, that these witnesses lack credibility because they are only offering second and thirdhand information at the same time you support the , white house blocking testimony from those witnesses, like john bolton, and mick mulvaney, who have firsthand information,

. either you want firsthand information or you don't. rep. mccarthy: what is interesting is we have firsthand information. we have something i believe the speaker of the house, if she waited 48 hours, would not put the american people through this. we have the transcript. it's not what someone was told fourthhand. we have the two people on the phone call that a whistleblower who was not that started this process. so we know exactly what words were said to one another. and we can walk all the way through that. we have all the information that we need to what adam schiff believed it was something different. adam schiff sat at the dais and read something he wished had transposed inside that transcript that didn't. all of america can read it, and that's why if you take speaker pelosi's words, has to be overwhelming, it has to be so compelling, and it has to be bipartisan. she doesn't meet one of her three criteria to move forward.

james: but just to be clear -- in the setting in which the republicans now find themselves, which is an impeachment proceeding, you are against hearing from witnesses who have firsthand knowledge of the president? rep. mccarthy: i am not averse to hearing from any witness. i am from the standpoint, if we go back to this moment, if we go back to the moment when adam schiff first came forward that he was so concerned that the administration was going to withhold a whistleblower from presenting to congress, that that is what he was fighting for. the only reason why adam schiff is now stopping and moving to table that motion is because we found out that adam schiff and his staff met with the whistleblower. adam schiff and his staff met with this whistleblower before this whistleblower had an attorney, before this whistleblower went to the inspector general. he is the only person and staff who knows what the whistleblower has said. but we have all the facts we need inside a transcript of the phone call itself. yes. >> you just asserted that

several republicans -- adam schiff either personally met the whistleblower or knows the identity of the whistleblower, which he continues to deny. do you think he's lying? rep. mccarthy: yes. >> you say there should be -- rep. mccarthy: this is not the first time he has lied to us, either. >> you say that you and your fellow republicans that the issue should be focused on the president's words on that call. "read the transcript." and yet, you have this growing number of state department officials, career public servants who say what they saw was "highly irregular," even "crazy." are they all wrong? rep. mccarthy: you know, yesterday, congressman john radcliffe left a question to these two witnesses who never met the president, were not on the phone call, has not talked to the chief of staff, and asked them, what do you see impeachable? is there one impeachable item in there? they could not answer one.

remember what we're discussing here. we're talking about removing a duly elected president. you take that so lightly, we have the transcript. you know, alexander hamilton warned us that this day may come. that a person may have the majority with inside of congress to use impeachment for their own personal political gains. we watched how many times they tried this in the last three years and failed. and now we see adam schiff leading the charge. >> you say not impeachable. but is any of it inappropriate to you? rep. mccarthy: are we having a hearing about inappropriate or are we having an impeachment inquiry? it goes to the core of the fabric of democracy. do you take it that lightly that you just have the u.s. congress vote about an impeachment inquiry and then change the rules of the house where you don't have due process, you move it out of the judiciary committee to the intel committee and then make it an impeachment committee, you have secret meetings inside the basement of the capitol, you have not released all the transcripts, you audition who you want to bring forward, and we just watched the two witnesses that

they wanted to pick, you deny the minority to bring witnesses forward, you deny the president, who you're moving to impeach, to have an attorney in the room, to cross-examine. the same respect that anyone impeachment had had before. so, yes nothing there is , impeachable. we should not be putting our country through this. we're less than a year away from an election. the worst part of all of this, we just had veterans day. next week, government funding stops. and we're not funding the troops. we're not giving them the pay raises that we believe we should. we're in a negotiation with china, which is our number three trader, but our number one and number two traders are mexico and canada. we would only be stronger as a nation in our negotiations with china if we were passing the -- we would pass the united states-mexico-canada agreement, but none of that is taking

place. we're not spending this week talking about the funding that needs to go forward. no. no one's mentioned a word of that, because everything has been taken over about impeachment. the same thing this majority has done for the last three years. and i leave you the question. name me one thing this majority problem they have solved. name me one thing those witnesses said yesterday was impeachable. so why are we putting the country through this, and why aren't we working on the things that the american public expects us to do? >> you -- republicans, the president have been critical of some of the testimony yesterday, "this is second-hand, third-hand." next week, you'll hear from gordon sondland, who president trump put in this position, who supported the inauguration fund. would his testimony change your calculation whether or not this is an impeachable offense, if he corroborates what these other witnesses said? >> [indiscernible] >> well yesterday, we heard

, there was a conversation overheard by sondland and the president where the president asked about investigations. rep. mccarthy: ok. well, you have a phone call where the president asked about an investigation. an investigation that's already going forward that i think most of america wants to know what transpired. an investigation that the attorney general is working on. none of that is impeachable. so the answer is no. yes? >> walking out of the hearing yesterday, many republicans thought -- the president said nothing is impeachable. that we learned nothing new. that said, is it the republicans' position, regardless what is right or wrong here, that there is no vulnerability to republicans from swing districts of overdefending the president or standing behind him as we move into an election? are you confident that this is not going to affect them in any adverse way, standing behind the president, as we move toward the 20 20t 2020 congressional elections? rep. mccarthy: i think what

republicans are doing is standing up for the constitution. i think of the same thing of the two democrats who voted against the impeachment inquiry. standing up for the constitution. i think this is the same thing that alexander hamilton warned us about, that we would use it for political gain. i think what the republicans are standing for are the ideas what they ran on. first thing i think a majority should do is pass a budget, which the democrats have not done. we should actually make sure they fund the government, which we have not done. we're working to now have another continuing resolution. so our troops are not being provided the resources they need or the pay raise that they have earned. prescription drugs continue to rise. we have, again, a trade agreement that would only make america and our economy stronger, especially when we are dealing with mexico. the only person i saw yesterday doing the job that they were elected to do was the president of the united states. meeting with another foreign leader. trying to end isis and others. being a part of nato. but what did we watch inside ways and means? the same thing we've seen for the last three years. and what's so disappointing about all of this, i watched what nancy pelosi said prior to the election.

she said they would be different. that they would govern different. but lo and behold, what did we find? we found when they decided who to be chairman of the judiciary committee, they didn't pick an individual that said they would fight for the privacy of individuals on the internet. they picked a campaign where nadler said he would be the very best for impeachment. we watched new freshmen being sworn in. what did they say on the night after they were being sworn in? did they celebrate a victory? no, they said they'd impeach the -- they wanted to impeach the president. than ie different terms used there. they spent three years trying to investigate this president. they have spent their entire majority trying to impeach this president. from every single walk. adam schiff has continued to lie to the american public when he very first went on the camera and said he had proof beyond circumstantial evidence. he lied to the american public again when he stood at a position of a chair of the intel

committee and misread what was in a transcript. on purpose. he was so compelling that the speaker of the house, nancy pelosi, believed him on national television. he lied, again, when he told the american public he did not know who this whistleblower was. and how hard he wanted to fight to bring the whistleblower forward. he had an opportunity that the whistleblower could come forward, just as we have been able to do in the past with the i.r.s. hearings in the 1990's and the others, this is the 21st century. we could protect the individual more, to actually get the information. but, no, that's not the case. because he's driven for one purpose. he has already written the script of where he wants to go on impeachment. he is now just trying to fill in the questions. >> my question -- republicans have vulnerability from? rep. mccarthy: look, you want to come here and decide what you're going to do based upon politics , or do you want to stand up for the constitution? i would hope the republicans, if this were in reverse order, this

was a democrat in the white house, that they would stand for the constitution the same way. i would hope at the same time they would never carry themselves in the manner of which i've seen these democrats, purely for political reasons, that these democrats have voted three times for impeachment. if you ask the democrats, and you can pick and choose who's the leader of the democrats, but i think there is a young freshman woman that leads most of the democrats, what did she say on tv last night? "if we don't impeach this president," and i am paraphrasing, we will not be successful in the next election. the same way al green, a congressman, a democrat on the other side, when he offered the impeachment motion, what did he say? if we don't impeach this president, he's going to win re-election. so the real question that you are asking me should go to the democrats. are they doing this for political purposes? are they standing for the constitution? i think only two of them are. >> how can you call schiff a liar? rep. mccarthy: because he lied to us. >> you don't have any proof, or

do you? what proof do you have that he lied? rep. mccarthy i have the mueller : report. >> on the whistleblower. rep. mccarthy: which time do you want to talk about him lying? when he spoke on the transcript that he added different words? >> that he knows who the whistleblower is and he has met with the whistleblower. rep. mccarthy: his staff met with the whistleblower, he can claim he did not, but he met -- they met with the whistleblower. now know -- you know what the whistleblower did not say? he met with the staff. reporter: he met with -- adam schiff met with the - mr. mccarthy: for the same reason that adam schiff said he had proof beyond circumstantial evidence, and we went -- we took america through a nightmare, we spent millions of dollars, we took the very best individuals we had in law enforcement, we went to 13 countries, and you

know what? we found out he lied. so then i watched adam schiff as chairman of a committee that is the -- of a committee that gets to see items that other members do not, gets to see the top secrets of things happening, read to the american public when , when all eyes were watching, on a transcript. and he lied about what was in it then. so when he looks at me and i watched him on television that day say, oh, he wish he knew who the whistleblower was. why didn't he say, "well, my staff met with them"? met with him? i think that would have been appropriate at the time, would it not? why would he question us about not believing him? shame me once, shame on me -- shame me once, shame on you. shame me twice, shame on me. that's exactly what he's done. he's lied to the american public three different times. and you still put him in charge? if the whistleblower staff -- i mean, if the whistleblower has met with his staff and him, they are fact witnesses. but we now put them in charge. and what do they do? they wrote the rules that not only are they prosecutor, which

nowhere in our judicial system would allow a whistleblower be a prosecutor, but he's a judge. he was questioned by elise stefanik, was he going to interrupt and direct the witnesses that he got to pick, not the republican witnesses that he denied, not to answer the republicans' questions, like he did down in the basement when , when the public could not see? what did we find in less than 20 minutes, he exactly did that same thing. so now he thinks he is the judge and also the jury. nowhere in america would we put someone like that in charge. nowhere would i believe in the republican conference would we allow someone that's continued to lie to the american public in charge of the intel committee. nowhere we would take it out of the judicial system into the intel committee, then make it the impeachment committee, and then change their rules, that members of their own committee cannot ask questions until adam schiff gets his 45 minutes, and then adam schiff can decide whether he needs another 45.

he was asked at the start, would he decide after the first 45 that the members of the committee could actually have their five minutes. no. he didn't say it. "we'll wait and see." so, yes. i think adam schiff has lied numerous times. i do not think adam schiff is fit to be in this position of running the intel committee, and that's only a decision by with one person, who could put them in there. yes, i believe adam schiff has spent his entire time in congress, since the president has been in, trying to impeach him. and i think he's already written the script. he auditioned the individuals in the basement, and he's picking and choosing them to come forward. why don't we take him at his own word? would he have lied when he came to us in america and said he's so concerned that the administration is withholding the whistleblower, that he will fight for this whistleblower to come forward, that they wanted to move legislation on the floor, did he lie to us then? now he doesn't want to bring the whistleblower forward, would that be a lie? i think that's a question for adam schiff. thank you all very much.

announcer: live on friday, the house returns for work on the bill to reauthorize the u.s. export import bank for 10 years at 9:00 a.m. on c-span. second impeachment hearing session. barr00 p.m., william addresses the federalist society. at 1:00 eastern on c-span three, former georgia candidate for governor stacey abrams. an hour, dan

kildee discusses the latest on the impeachment inquiry, and at 8:30 a.m., ann coulter discusses daca, impeachment, and camping 2020. -- campaign 2020. >> good morning. the impeachment inquiry public hearings continue with marie yovanovitch in the witness chair. the veteran diplomat will testify but for best before the 22 lawmakers about an alleged smear campaign against her in the president's decision to recall her from that post. our coverage begins at 9:00 a.m. eastern time on c-span2, on the website, c-span.org, or you can download and listen with the free c-span radio app. we will begin this morning with your reaction to the latest on the impeachment inquiry.