Kevin McCarthy might not be Speaker of the House right now. He might not be in House leadership after this week. But for today, he is still a leader within the Republican caucus, and as he said during a speech today, “Whether I’m Speaker or not, I’m still a member of this body.”

And in that capacity, even with his own status uncertain and ambiguous, Kevin McCarthy gave a stellar, concise five-point plan to address what happened in Israel over the weekend, how it affects American interests, and how we must confront rising anti-Semitism. He also delivered a solid roundhouse kick to the face to the Biden administration regarding their appeasement of Iran, their security failures on the southern border, and Joe Biden’s lack of leadership at a critical moment.

His speech and subsequent presser are worth watching. McCarthy is masterful at dealing with the press. He has no issues taking questions and staying on point. Given what we routinely see from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, his focus and delivery are a silver lining of normalcy.

McCarthy’s five point plan is as follows:
1) Rescue American hostages, and make Hamas realize there are consequences for harming Americans.
McCarthy pointed out that the death toll has now risen from four Americans to nine, with no numbers yet on how many may be held hostage. Saying that this cannot be a repeat of Afghanistan, he demanded that “no American be left behind” this time, and also said that the leader of Hamas must be extradited from his comfortable digs in Qatar to face accountability. McCarthy also added his voice to what others have said, that the $6 billion that was unfrozen for Iran’s use should be frozen again immediately.

2) We must resupply Israel so they have what they need in order to make sure the Iron Dome will not be overwhelmed again.
Hamas managed to overwhelm Iron Dome with the sheer number of rockets sent over, and then, McCarthy said, was able to use “precision-guided missiles” in order to hit larger populations. He stressed that we must “be there” for our ally Israel, and make sure that they are not overwhelmed like that again.

3) Confront Iran.
As we covered earlier, Iran got the $6 billion freed up, and then started making plans with Hamas to attack and invade Israel. Apparently, Iran itself is now leaving Hamas out to dry. Remember, Hamas leaders said they got Iran’s help. Iran is now trying to cover their ass.

The Iranian mission to the United Nations pushed back on a report in the Wall Street Journal that Iran was in control of the planning and timing for the invasion (CONFIRMED: Iran Planned and ‘Green-Lit’ Murderous Hamas Attacks on Israel), saying, “The determined steps of the Palestinians constitute a completely legitimate defense against seven decades of occupation and terrible crimes by the illegitimate Zionist regime. We support Palestine without reservation. However, we are not involved in the Palestinian response, which was carried out only by Palestine itself.”

It went on to say the decision to attack “was taken solely by Palestine itself….They [Israel] are attempting to justify their failure and attribute it to Iran’s intelligence power and operational planning.”

This is a sign that the invasion of Israel is not unfolding in the way it was planned.

That dodging aside, McCarthy called for new sanctions on Iran, and in order to cut them off financially, called for American energy independence. Along with saying the Abraham Accords should be expanded, McCarthy proposed making America the “energy powerhouse of the world,” pointing out that our way of getting natural gas and oil is cleaner for the environment than Iran’s methods.

4) Focus on our own security.
The attack from Gaza caught everyone off guard – not just Israeli intelligence, but American intelligence as well. How did that happen, McCarthy asked, and how does Secretary of State Antony Blinken “not know” if Iran is involved, but the Wall Street Journal does? (My answer would be that Blinken is a willfully naive tool who doesn’t WANT to know if Iran is involved, because that would wreck the Biden administration’s hopes of resurrecting the Iran Deal.) McCarthy also pointed out that during this year, 151 people on the FBI’s terror watch list have been caught at the southern border. (That number comes from the CBP’s own data, but NBC News claims that it’s actually 160 people.) In a harsh smackdown to Biden, McCarthy pointed out that Joe has said that the “number one threat” to America is climate change, but the reality is that the number one threat is terrorism and appeasement.

5) “As we look inward, we must confront anti-Semitism in the United States.”
We have seen the celebration of utter depravity, and people advocating for the slaughter of innocents because they are Jews, within the United States over the last 24 hours. We all have seen the images from New York to Chicago to Kirkland, Washington to Illinois.

Residents of "Little Palestine," Illinois (pop. 85,000) tell @MSNBC Hamas has "no choice" but to rape, torture, abduct teenagers, infants, elderly because… "provocations." Reporter @Maggie_Vespa says overall feeling is "pain" pic.twitter.com/ZQvBdifFB0

— Daniel Roth (@daniel_c_roth) October 9, 2023

We have read the arrogant, snot-nosed, radical statements from alleged intellectuals at Harvard – in reality, spoiled brats regurgitating what they’ve been told by radical college professors. Kevin McCarthy called out colleges and universities specifically, and you know that he had to be thinking of these Haavaaahd snobs. And he pointed out that he himself has been consistent on speaking out against anti-Semitism in the House, recalling that he denied Rashida Tlaib the use of a House room to hold her “Nabka” party (she ended up holding it on the Senate side with the assistance of Bernie Sanders), and that he removed Ilhan Omar off the Foreign Affairs committee once he became Speaker because of her past comments.

Before he took questions, McCarthy delivered one more right hook to Biden: “Turn off the barbecue and speak to the American people.” We have not heard from Biden himself since Saturday, and the White House called a lid just before lunch yesterday, AND AGAIN TODAY. Where is Joe Biden? He apparently took a call from Benjamin Netanyahu today, but we have dead Americans and others being potentially held as hostages by Hamas, and the president is calling a lid??? Unacceptable. The president is either the leader of the nation or he isn’t. This is disgraceful.

McCarthy did take questions after, and the one the press kept pushing him on was whether he would be willing to be Speaker again. A lot of things have changed since last week, hmmmm? McCarthy demurred, saying that this was a decision for the conference to make. But this kickass speech, plus the press conference, especially in light of Joe Biden’s vanishing act, does make a solid case for putting McCarthy back in the Speaker’s office.

It’s very clear from this news conference that McCarthy wants to be speaker again. He says he’ll let the conference decide who unites them. He isn’t directly addressing what he would do if nominating, saying it’s a decision for the conference.

Many of McCarthy’s allies have…

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 9, 2023

The GOP caucus is meeting tomorrow. While Jim Jordan has gotten Donald Trump’s endorsement and Kevin Hern of Oklahoma has dropped out, the caucus doesn’t seem to have come to any kind of consensus. Could McCarthy end up carrying the day again, on the strength of his leadership in a trying moment like this? Anything is possible.

His speech today is one that we should have heard from a president or a presidential candidate, but we haven’t heard anything like it yet from anyone else. Kudos to Kevin McCarthy, because even if you don’t agree with all of his politics, he is one hundred percent right about standing by Israel, standing up to Iran, protecting Americans at home and abroad, and rooting out anti-Semitism in our own country. For all of that, he deserves a hearty round of applause. Thank you, sir.

Featured image: Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), cropped, official photo, public domain