Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy wants to empower President Biden to stand strong against the threats of the CCP; “the House can try to give him a backbone,” McCarthy says.
McCarthy wants to make it clear to Beijing: “we mean business.”
“If we have the policymakers on board, we could send the president policy that will make him stronger and give him a stronger hand,” McCarthy told Fox News Digital on his plans for China in an exclusive sit-down interview.
“I want to empower the president,” he continued. “If we are united in the House, it gives the president a stronger hand. In essence, the House can try to give him a backbone.”
However, McCarthy said the president “needs to be where House Republicans and Democrats are,” and warned that he is “not there” yet.
“We need to speak directly to China, and, regardless of how long he thinks he has known Xi — Xi is a different person than he was before, and China is in a different place than it was before, and they think they are stronger than they were before,” McCarthy warned. “We need to be united to do that.”
From Fox News:
Biden has touted his rapport with Xi as an advantage and wants to carefully leverage that years-long relationship as he deals with rising tensions between the U.S. and China.
McCarthy said one of the first areas Biden should pressure Xi and show strength should be on the issue of fentanyl.
“One of the first things he should do with Xi is stop the fentanyl coming to America,” McCarthy said. “He just has to call and say, this is personal, if you don’t stop the chemicals from coming, we’re going to do something about this.”
McCarthy said the U.S. has “done this before with Xi and fentanyl got curbed very quickly.”
When asked if he believes the White House and Congress can find a consensus on the approach to China, McCarthy said, “He is the President of the United States. I am the speaker of the House. Our job is to work to try to find what is best for America.”
“I would do everything in my power to get there,” he said. “Do we have a difference of opinion? Yes. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to work with him, because I want to get him to the right place.”
More over at Fox News:
McCarthy’s China mission: Give Biden a ‘backbone,’ ‘empower’ him to tackle the CCP threat https://t.co/XphcMkWw7x
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