Speeches
April 12, 2024
Washington, D.C. - Congressman Tom McClintock (CA-05) today delivered the following remarks on the House floor. Mr. Speaker: I don’t discount the mounting dangers we face from enemies abroad. But we also cannot discount the dangers we face at home from the very powers this bill would continue. The FBI abused these powers 278,000 times in a single year and turned them against American citizens: searching for January 6th and Black Lives Matter rioters, probing political donors and even piercing congressional offices. John Adams believed that indiscriminate searches by British officials became the first spark of the American revolution. Having lived under such a tyranny, the Founders protected us with the Fourth Amendment. Before authorities can search through our records, they have to get a warrant from an independent judge by showing probable cause to suspect we’ve committed a crime. There are many excellent reforms in this bill that I applaud. But they largely depend on these agencies policing themselves, and experience warns us that’s just not enough. Without a warrant requirement, I fear these powers will once again be turned against our fundamental liberties and -- these days -- that scares me as much as a terrorist attack.
March 13, 2024
Washington, D.C. - Congressman Tom McClintock (CA-05) delivered the following remarks on the House floor. Mr. Speaker: Do we really want to give the President the power to declare “foreign adversaries” and then require a communications platform within them to be banned or sold to a government-approved owner? If there are data privacy concerns, we should warn consumers and trust them to make their own decisions. If there are propaganda concerns, we should defend the free and open debate that our First Amendment protects, confident that the best way to judge truth from lies is to put the two side by side and trust the people to know the difference. The last thing we should do is take that power AWAY from the people and give it to the government. The answer to authoritarianism is NOT more authoritarianism. The answer to CCP-style propaganda is NOT CCP-style oppression. Let us SLOW down before we BLUNDER down this very steep and slippery slope.
February 29, 2024
H.R. 7335 by Rep. Tom McClintock (CA-05) passed the House Judiciary Committee today. The Transparency in National Security Threats Act (H.R. 7335) requires the Attorney General in conjunction with the DHS Secretary to provide information regarding watch listed aliens encountered by DHS. It also requires that the administration make public each month the number of illegal aliens encountered at the border from each foreign country. This information is currently unavailable to the American public.
February 6, 2024
Washington, D.C. – Congressman Tom McClintock (CA-05) delivered the following remarks on the House floor. Mr. Speaker: Secretary Mayorkas is guilty of maladministration of our immigration laws on a cosmic scale. But we KNOW that’s not grounds for impeachment, because the American Founders specifically rejected it. They didn’t want political disputes to become impeachments, because that would shatter the separation of powers that vests the enforcement of the laws with the President – no matter how bad a job he does. Cabinet secretaries can’t serve two masters. They can be impeached for committing a crime relating to their office, but not for carrying out presidential policy. The border crisis can’t be fixed by replacing one left-wing official with another. It can only be fixed by the American people at the ballot box by replacing this administration with one committed to securing our borders, defending our country, and upholding the rule of law. Americans are already coming to that conclusion. And I’m afraid that stunts like this don’t help.
January 11, 2024
Washington, D.C. – The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement held a hearing today on "The Impact of Illegal Immigration on Social Services.” Subcommittee Chairman McClintock delivered the following opening statement at the hearing: The day he took office, Joe Biden issued executive orders that opened our borders to the world and began the largest illegal mass migration in recorded history. Since that day, his administration has deliberately released into the country over 3.3 million illegal aliens, a population the size of the state of Iowa. And while the border patrol was overwhelmed changing diapers and taking names, an additional 1.7 million known got-aways have entered as well – an additional illegal population the size of West Virginia.
December 14, 2023
The ancient Greeks would have appreciated the irony of this story. Kevin McCarthy spent his life preparing for the job that he held for just 269 days. For decades, he devoted all of his energies and skills to build one of the most formidable political organizations of our time that ultimately took back the House. In those 269 days as Speaker, despite the most slender of majorities and with Democrats controlling the Senate and White House: He cut $2 trillion of spending over the next decade. He forestalled the hiring of an army of IRS agents. He curtailed the woke policies plaguing our armed forces. He averted a government shutdown in a dangerous world. He reopened the Capitol to the American people. He launched historic investigations into government corruption. And he produced the strongest border security measure in a century and landmark legislation to restore American energy independence.
December 13, 2023
Mr. Speaker: Short of declaring war, impeachment is the most serious act Congress can take. It must be confined to the narrow grounds established by the Constitution and never used to settle political differences. But the Democrats would have us turn a blind eye to mounting evidence of a family influence peddling scheme that implicates the President. This we cannot do. We owe it to the country to get to the bottom of these allegations and that requires the House to objectively invoke its full investigatory powers, respect the due process rights of those involved, and lay ALL the facts before the American people. Last session, Democrats made a mockery of impeachment and we cannot allow them to become our teachers. Shrill voices should be kept far from this inquiry lest they undermine its legitimacy and credibility. Congress has an obligation to approach serious accusations seriously. With this vote, we do so.
December 13, 2023
Mr. Speaker: When the Presidents of MIT, Harvard and University of Pennsylvania were invited to denounce open race-hatred on their campuses, they wrapped themselves in the mantle of free speech. People have a right to say what they think as long as it doesn’t become threatening conduct, they said, and on this narrow point they’re right. But that doesn’t explain why antisemitism is rampant on their campuses. It is not a tolerance for outrageous speech that is the problem – it is a complete intolerance of patriotic speech. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the two most intolerant and oppressive universities in the country are Harvard and UPenn. MIT ranks 136th out of 254 universities surveyed. How is it possible that such depraved and discredited philosophies as Marxism, totalitarianism, racism, Islamic-fascism and antisemitism now flourish on these college campuses? Because for years, the antidote to these social pathologies – the American founding principles of freedom, democracy, tolerance, and justice that have always kept them in check -- have been systematically suppressed and removed from campus discussions.
November 30, 2023
Mr. Speaker: The attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7th was an unprovoked act of barbarity and butchery that targeted innocent civilians and broke every rule of war dating back to medieval times. The sinister nature of the attack and the genocidal character of the government behind it should shock the conscience of every man and woman of good will on this planet. As the Nazis were systematically murdering six million Jews, the civilized nations of the world took up arms in defense of the defenseless, annihilated the scourge of Hitler and Hitlerism and vowed to NEVER allow such crimes to be permitted again. To assure this objective, these united nations restored the Jewish state to the Jewish homeland, whose roots in Israel trace back to the dawn of human history. NEVER AGAIN. Israel exists today to maintain and uphold that sacred vow of mankind. NEVER AGAIN. The generation that survived those times KNEW how vital that declaration is and how essential the existence of Israel is to fulfill it. And yet, the genocidal hatred that produced the Holocaust was never completely extinguished.
October 3, 2023
Washington, D.C. – Congressman Tom McClintock (CA-05) delivered remarks on the House floor in opposition of a motion to vacate the chair. Mr. Speaker: If there was ever a time for sobriety, wisdom and caution in this House, it is right now. If this motion carries, the House will be paralyzed. We can expect week after week of fruitless ballots while no other business can be conducted. The Democrats will revel in Republican dysfunction and the public will rightly be repulsed. It will end when the Democrats are able to enlist a rump caucus of Republicans to join a coalition to end the impasse. This House will shift dramatically to the left and will effectively end the Republican House majority that the voters elected in 2022.