Kevin McCarthy has received a software upgrade, and I think you’re going to like it.

The somewhat contentious Speaker of the House, who faced down a conservative revolt during his confirmation, has been keeping his promises so far, and that includes kicking Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff off the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

As RedState reported, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries initially reappointed the controversial Democrats to the committee, demanding McCarthy bend the knee while ignoring the consequences of Nancy Pelosi’s tyrannical reign. To his credit, the new Speaker told Jeffries to pound sand.

Naturally, that has the press raving mad (mostly because Schiff is a main source of leaks), and one snarky reporter decided to try to tie the situation to George Santos. You know, because the current Congress apparently revolves around a no-name freshman whose committee assignments are the equivalent of working at McDonald’s.

You have to listen carefully to hear exactly what the reporter says, but the gist of her assertion is that it’s hypocritical to put Santos onto any committees while keeping Schiff and Swalwell off of a specific committee. McCarthy absolutely levels her from start to finish.

So @SpeakerMcCarthy, now that he is speaker, is just destroying these media members and their questions. I love it. Watch this: pic.twitter.com/Yy4bM7Et34

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) January 25, 2023

The reporter must have had a few extra helpings of avocado toast before showing up because she was bursting with energy, and not in a good way. She interrupts McCarthy the moment he begins to answer her question, accusing him of not answering her question (he hadn’t gotten a sentence out yet). That’s when the Speaker just goes nuclear.

Let me be very clear and respectful to you. You asked me a question. When I answer it, it’s the answer to your question. You don’t get to determine whether I answer your question or not.

At that point, the press corps gets loud, appearing to believe he’s moving on to the next reporter, but he then says “no, no, let’s answer her question.”

MCCARTHY: The intel committee is different. You know why? Because what happens in the intel committee, you don’t know. What happens in the intel committee, the secrets going on in the world, other members of congress don’t know. What did Adam Schiff do as the chairman of the intel committee? What Adam Schiff did was use his power as the chairman to lie to the American public. Even the inspector general said it.

When Devin Nunes put out a memo, he said it was false. When we had a laptop, he used it before an election to play politics and say that it was false and said it was the Russians when he knew different, when he knew the intel.

If you talk to John Ratcille, DNI, he came out ahead of time to say there’s no intel to prove that, and he used his position as chariman, knowing he has information the rest of America does not, and lied to the American public. When a whistleblower came forward, he said he did not know the individual even though his staff had met with the individual and set it up. So no, he does not have a right to sit on that.

He just keeps the flamethrower going from there, telling the reporter that she hasn’t gotten the briefings on Swalwell that he and Pelosi got, noting that the FBI came forward to warn about Swalwell’s “problem” with a Chinese spy. McCarthy then states “this has nothing to do with Santos” because Santos is not being put on the intel committee.

Would Mitch McConnell have ever given that kind of response to a reporter trying to play partisan politics? I think we know the answer to that. Whatever one thought of McCarthy before, at this moment, he’s showing the kind of killer instinct that Republican voters have been begging for. Let’s hope he keeps it up.