Kevin McCarthy: Biden showing he'll 'surrender' to Bernie-led 'socialist wing' of the party
McCarthy says the November election will indicate whether 'this country surrenders or this country builds on a more perfect union'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told “Fox & Friends” on Thursday that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is “surrendering” to socialists after a task force set up by the former vice president and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders released a wide-ranging set of recommendations for the party’s convention platform.
While the proposals lay out a progressive road map for Biden, the document falls short of the ambitious plans pushed by Sanders and other candidates during the Democratic primaries.
“This is not a unity group, this is surrendering to the socialists,” McCarthy, R-Calif., said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}He went on to note that Biden “has been in Washington for more than 40 years” and “hasn't been able to” to accomplish much on criminal justice reform and other things.
“President Trump did do criminal justice reform, he did open up opportunity zones, he had taken executive order when it comes to police reform so this president is taking action,” McCarthy said.
“Joe has a long history of doing nothing, but now he shows that he'll even surrender to the socialist wing of the party, because remember, Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat, he was registered as a socialist, ran as a socialist and that's what the new wing of the party is craving.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The panel was appointed by Biden and Sanders after the populist senator from Vermont dropped out of the race and endorsed the former vice president. Its mission – following a primary season where the sharp policy differences between the more moderate Biden and the populist Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., were on display – was to find common ground in six key areas: climate change, criminal justice reform, the economy, education, health care and immigration.
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“Look at the new congressional members,” McCarthy said on Thursday, specifically pointing to Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., saying she “wants to dismantle America instead of duplicating America around the world.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“Think of her personal life, born in a foreign land, in a refugee camp, America opens their arms to her family and herself,” McCarthy said. “In a first-generation, she becomes a U.S. congresswoman and she's unhappy about that, she’s unhappy about this country, when this country, actually the freedom and the ideas that we are more than a country should be duplicated.
“It inspires people in Hong Kong, shipyard workers in Poland, the Berlin Wall collapses where two Germanys become one. That is the power of America,” he continued. “That is not something to dismantle, it’s something to duplicate.”
McCarthy also reacted to Biden’s comments on Wednesday during an interview that some funding should “absolutely” be redirected from police, amid calls from some in his party to "defund the police" in the wake of protests across the country.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Also this week, the Philadelphia arm of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement is calling for the "complete abolition" of the police department in five years.
"One of the things that we are demanding over five years is the complete abolition. We don't want to see any police in our community," BLM Philadelphia representative and activist YahNé Ndgo told Fox News. “Over the course of those five years, it gives time for the community to begin to build what is needed.”
“I want her to give that answer to the parents of the young children who were shot and killed through the weekend,” McCarthy said in response. “The idea that less police is going to bring us safety, no, we've watched the difference of that happening.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“That is why it is wrong and that is why Joe Biden is buying in and surrendering to the socialists,” he continued. “That is not what we need.”
McCarthy went on to say that instead, “greater training of the police department” and “more accountability” are needed.
“We have one of the most important decisions we're going to make” in November, McCarthy said.
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“It’s not just the direction of the next four years, it's whether this country surrenders or this country builds on a more perfect union,” he continued.
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser, Hollie McKay, Morgan Phillips and Allie Raffa contributed to this report.