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Dasha Burns, the host of C-SPAN’s Ceasefire, spoke to former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and ex-Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) this week about why so many lawmakers are retiring ahead of the 2026 midterms.
McCarthy responded with a dire warning about the national push for states to gerrymander their congressional maps, which was instigated by President Donald Trump’s urging for Texas Republicans to break tradition and do a mid-decade redistricting to hurt Democrats. California Democrats quickly retaliated against Texas and are now working to eliminate GOP seats in the state.
Burns began the exchange by asking McCarthy, “All right, you both retired from public service before it was as fashionable as it is today. Take a look at this headline from NPR here: ‘More than 10% of Congress won’t return to their seats after 2026.’ Mr. McCarthy, I want to play a soundbite from you about Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s retirement. Take a listen to yourself.”
“She’s almost like a canary in a coal mine, and this is something inside Congress they better wake up to because they’re going to get a lot of people retiring and they’ve got to focus,” McCarthy is then heard saying in the clip.
Burns asked, “What do you make of the state of Capitol Hill right now?”
“It’s in chaos. And what happens is people run on both sides of the aisle because they want to accomplish something,” McCarthy replied, adding:
If nothing’s being accomplished — because they are making a sacrifice, they’re being away from their family, sometimes it’s a long travel, you get harassed, you get death threats, all the different things — but you’re willing to make that sacrifice if you can accomplish something. When nothing is happening, when it’s just pure fighting, people say, “I could go spend my time doing something else.” And it’s not good when you see the number of people retiring, but the quality of people.
Naturally, people are going to retire, and turnover is a natural way, and the election is a natural way to do it. But what’s happening now is there’s fewer competitive seats, so the politicians are now picking the voters instead of the voters picking the elected officials.
Burns followed up, “And they’re trying to do more and more of that now, which is bad.”
McCarthy agreed, “Which is bad. Well, now we’re trying to make whole states decide whether they’re red or blue, and that’s bad for the country. Remember, the founders — we’re going to have our 250th anniversary this year — the founders designed it where the House you can flip every two years. It’s supposed to be a microcosm of society, closest there. The Senate, every six years, so it’s more grandfatherly, calm it down. Predetermining who’s elected — that’s not good. You’re taking away the power of the idea.”
Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.
