Kevin McCarthy warns of potential ‘sleeper cells’ in the US

Ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has warned there may be terrorist sleeper cells hiding in the US and waiting for the order to strike during the unprecedented illegal immigration at the southern border.

“If you simply look at what’s the chaos right now, a wide-open southern border, I’m concerned about a cell sitting inside America today,” the Republican Congressman told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.

“We just caught 18 people just last month on the FBI Terror Watch List coming across our border, more than 160 have done it this year,” the former speaker said, citing a recently released Customs and Border Protection report, which showed a total of 169 people on the terror watch list were apprehended over the past 12 months.

He noted that the troubling figures showed there were more terrorists attempting to enter the US via the southern border last year than over the past six fiscal years combined.

“When we’re looking around the Middle East and the uprisings popping up around Europe and others, they could be sleeper cells right now in America.

“But this administration [hasn’t done anything] to change what’s happening on the southern border,” McCarthy continued. “We got government funding where our troops wouldn’t be paid sitting here for a month.”

He added that if he were still the Speaker of the House, “I would’ve made sure that we looked at our own border — that we don’t have any sleeper cells here, that we would actually stop these terrorists coming across our own border.”

But in the interview, McCarthy threw his support for the Speaker behind Rep. Tom Emmer, a Republican from Minnesota, whom he said “has been a part of our successes… from the beginning.”

“I’m going to lead in any capacity I can [to] help to protect America,” McCarthy said as Meet the Press host Kristen Walker pressed him on whether he will once again seek the speakership.

“I’m going to work to secure our border. I’m going to work to stop the inflation. I’m going to make sure war does not break out in Israel, and that Israel has every resource they need to defend themselves. But more importantly, I’m going to press this administration,” he said.

“We have to destroy Hamas,” he continued. “But you cannot do it without confronting Iran,” which he said is “getting billions of dollars to fund terrorism around the world.

“We have to be very clear: Every single American has to come home,” McCarthy said of the hostages held by Hamas. “No one will be left behind.”

Following Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel earlier this month, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said it does “not have specific and credible intelligence indicating a threat to the United States at this time, stemming from the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel.”

The spokesperson added in remarks to Fox News that the department is “closely monitoring unfolding events and will continue to engage in information sharing with our intelligence and law enforcement partners at home and abroad.”

He said, though, that the department is “prepared to respond to any potential impacts to public safety” and that the “United States will not hesitate to adjust our security posture, as appropriate, to protect the homeland and the people of the United States.”