More than once during the interview, DeLay criticized the House GOP rule that requires members of the leadership to step down if they are indicted. The rule, he said, allows any partisan prosecutor in America — he had Ronnie Earle specifically in mind — to depose a House leader. And that, DeLay argued, has hurt Republicans by bringing chaos to their leadership at a critical time:

We don’t have an agreed-to agenda. I’m not whining, but Democrats are smart. Breaking up our leadership has taken a toll. I’m not criticizing anybody. It just takes time to build a staff, get them up and running, make the logistics of creating that leadership. I tried to tell people that for the last year and a half, and they’re seeing it now, they’re seeing what I told them and they wouldn’t believe.
What are they seeing, exactly?
They’re seeing, number one, if you don’t change the rules…then the Democrats will take advantage and pick the Republican leadership. Well, that’s what happened over a year ago, and the result of that is I got indicted. I wouldn’t have been indicted it if we didn’t have that rule, and the leadership was undermined the minute I got indicted and had to temporarily step aside. We had a new leadership structure, and we had to figure out how to deal with that, and that created problems. And then a whole new leadership slate, with a leadership race, and that created problems.