of the america people, regardless of their region, regardless of their race and ethnicity and religion, regardless of their opposition or support, we will do what is best for america. thank you, all, very much. god bless all of you. god bless the united states of america. thank you. >> thank you. >> leaders of the 116th congress who were elected today talked to capitol hill reporters about their legislative agenda. the new hives minority leader kevin mccarthy who heads the republican caucus and elijah leaders, senate minority chuck schumer introduces the new democratic leadership and later, senate majority leader mcconnell. electedpublicans have kevin mccarthy to be minority leader in the next congress. the current house speaker paul

ryan's decision not to run for reelection opened up the top spot in the republican leadership. congressman mccarthy introduced the newly elected leaders at a capitol hill news conference. >> thank you for being here, i want to introduce you to the new republican leadership team. scheme -- steve scully cesarean whip, liz cheney as the conference chair, we have vice , garymr. mark walker palmer as our policy and mr. tom imre is heading up the nrc. he is outworking to win that majority back. i am humbled to have the privilege to serve.

i will tell you our number one americato get continuing moving forward. we serve in a divided government and a divided country. our goal is to unite us back together again. our second goal will need to make sure we win the majority back. we know the challenge of what we are working on, we want to hit the ground running, we know democrats have a plan. they want to disrupt, they want to try to impeach, they want to stall what achievements we have been able to move forward. we know america is too great for such a small vision. ,e will work here every state we know where we have our challenges to win back the suburban areas, we will do just that. but i truly believe that america is and will always be the strongest nation on the face of the earth. i want to introduce our newest

member of our leadership team, our conference chair, liz cheney. cheney: thank you. it is an honor to be here, an honor to serve with this team, i look forward very much to be in the conference chair. we have a lot of work ahead of us and we have the right policies and we know that policies we put in place in the last congress are the ones that create the kind of economic growth and national security that we need in this nation. i would say we will take a back seat to no one neither i will nor anyone in this leadership team when it comes to doing what is right for america's leader, america's minorities, making cares deeply about. i am honored to serve and we will take back the majority. it is my tremendous honor now to be able to introduce our new minority whip, mr. steve cohen -- steve scalise. mr. scully's: congratulations to

you, kevin, and our leadership team. it is an honor to be elected as a republican whip and it is a job i have enjoyed for the last four years and one of the things is i would travel around the country in a lot of swing districts, people love the fact that we have a booming economy. they see how tremendous the success has been for hard-working families. they are seeing more money in their hx, they are seeing wages go up. history was working against us in the house and it caught up. what we need to do is redouble our efforts. one of the things we need to do with the republican minority as we work to earn that majority back is to let people know what we are standing for. those principles that have been driven to work and get our economy back on track and help those families who are counting on us. they want to see this economy continue to grow. a lot of those swing districts you never heard democrats talk about obstructing and subpoenas

and impeachment. they talked about being pro-life and pro gun and be interesting if they keep the word to their voters. the people in this country don't want an obstructive congress but people who want to work together to keep this great economic success going, working with the president who is focused on getting this country back on track. as we constitute this new leadership team, we will be refocused on our efforts to earn the trust of the american people and let people know why these conservative principles are important to keep a safe and secure america and get the majority back in two years. mr. walker: thank you, mr. leader. it is a privilege to be elected by my peers to vice chair. our goal in working with liz is to continue to build bridges and develop relationships in new places and to new communities. last several years, democratic policies simply have driven more people into poverty.

the last two years, the republican people have lifted people out of poverty. i look forward to working with this leadership team. mr. smith: it is a great honor to be part of this team with the leadership of mr. mccarthy and it's important to look at the other leadership team. this team right here, the average age of all of us combined is 52 years old. the average age of the top three leading candidates on the other side is 78 years old. we are all about new ideas and moving this country forward and new progress. i'm happy to be part of this team. mr. palmer: i really appreciate the opportunity to serve the american people in this capacity. we will restore hope for america. i believe that our policies and the ideas we are bringing to the

table of what's good for the country is good for the american people and i think it's going to be good not only for our economy but for our future and i'm excited about the opportunity to be a part of this and we will get the majority back. mr. mccarthy: we understand we have a divided government and we have a divided nation. our goal is to unite us. this is the opportunity to help continue america to move forward. we are proud in the fact that the last 49 years our unemployment is its lowest and proud of the fact of the changes to the v.a. or rebuilding our military and giving our women and men the largest raise they ever had in nine years and combating opioid addiction and human trafficking. we will work with anybody across the aisle if they are there to move america forward. let me be very clear, if their agenda is investigations, impeachment, and not focused on

the hardworking american public, we will be there to defend the american public. we know this is not an easy time, but we know there is an opportunity. i hope you see by us having a leadership election now that this conference is united. it's healthy to have a debate. i thank jim jordan for running. we came into this congress together. one of the smallest republican classes the history of congress. only 13 of us. many believed we could not achieve a majority or move america in the right direction but in four short years we did that. we left america a little stronger. do you realize the discretionary spending that congress has control over is $13 billion less today than the last time nancy pelosi was speaker. look at the c.b.o. numbers, we saved $4 trillion for the american public. we will continue to strive to make america more effective, most efficient and more accountable.

it i will take a few questions. >> what went wrong. how can you say the loss isn't against president trump. mr. mccarthy: history is against us. any president in their first off year election loses an average of 30 seats. barack obama lost 53. anybody who is in that office, history runs against us. michael bloomberg spent more than $100 million and was effective in defeating republican women. look what he did in california. but you know something changed. history didn't always prove out correctly because history says since 1992, anybody who is retired the seat but carried about the other party,. but young kim, who is right now winning in california.

so, no his money didn't defeat all the republican women. we have work cut out for us. history works against us. we have challenges in the suburban area and we will work harder to bring it back. >> nancy pelosi in winning back the majority now since she should be the next speaker of the house. mr. mccarthy: that's a question for her conference. they wanted to delay the election. there are a number of members that pledged they would not vote for her. only time will tell. i question what their agenda was and what they run on. you just cannot resist. i raised the point about unemployment. in the last 49 years, unemployment has only been below 4% 11 months. six of those 11 months you just lived through. not one democrat voted for that tax bill in the house or senate. they want to repeal it and want to remove i.c.e. and impeach the president.

they want us to work together to solve our biggest problems and see that the next century is the american century and will work with any democrat who has that same goal. [inaudible] ms. cheney: it's particularly moving obviously. my father has a real love of this institution, a love of the house of representatives and it's a love that i share. it's a wonderful place and we are here at a moment where we have the opportunity as the leader and the whip and all of our members pointed out to make a difference, to be in a position where we can take back the majority. if you look what we accomplished in the last congress and how the democrats started this one. i think men and women all across the political spectrum are going to take a look at that and say

we need positive economic growth and positive national security that we saw in the last congress, not the chaos we have begun to see over there. mr. mccarthy: all these people, that's pretty impressive. you're intimidating them. [inaudible] mr. mccarthy: the republican party has to continue to grow. the youngest woman elected to congress, currently serving, is a woman. of course she's a woman. she's a republican. we took a beating inside the suburban area. we're going to have to work harder. i think our message is going to have to be. our ideas are going to haver to

-- have to be stronger. we realize that and we'll work toward that effort. michael bloomberg spent more than $100 million, he focused on women who were republican and unfortunately a lot of races became close. i watched mimi walters fall behind. let's hope that picks back up. millions of dollars spent against her. i think that is wrong that someone picked upon gender. i'm proud of the history -- reporter: [inaudible] mr. mccarthy: no. he picked against republicans but he spent a great deal of money against republican women. the $3 million he spent on top of karen handle, the money he put into california. no. that's a contributing factor. you look at others. i think we have an opportunity to rebuild. i'm proud of the history of the republican party. proud of the history of the republican party, what it's built on. the very first republican president was abraham lincoln. i think we stick to our principles and goals and you'll see this party continue to grow

and be the majority that represents all of america. in gender, faith, reality. we'll be back. thank you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] >> the incoming class of freshmen members of congress posed for a group photo in front of the capital. they will not be sworn in until january 3 but they are in washington for training sessions and to vote for house leadership. the newly elected 116th congress will have a record number of women and a record number of common veterans.