Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy found himself in hot water with former President Donald J. Trump and his supporters over comments that he made during an interview with CNBC in which he seemed to express doubt that the current 2024 GOP frontrunner is the “strongest” candidate.
At a time when the former president is facing the fight of his life against the Biden regime’s weaponized Justice Department that is hellbent on putting him behind bars, Speaker McCarthy infuriated Team Trump with his remarks on Tuesday’s edition of “Squawk Box,” forcing him into damage control mode that reportedly included a call in which he personally apologized to Trump.
“Can Trump beat Biden?” McCarthy said in response to a question on whether Trump can win next year’s election. “Yeah, he can beat Biden,” adding, “Republicans get to select their nominee. I think if you want to go sheer policy to policy, it’s not what’s good for Republicans; it’s what’s good for America. Trump’s policies are better, straightforward, than Biden’s policies.”
“Can he win an election? Yeah,” he said. “The question is–Is he the strongest to win the election? I don’t know that answer. But, can somebody—can anybody—beat Biden? Yeah, anybody can beat Biden. Can Biden beat other people? Yeah, Biden can beat them. It’s on any given day.”
The top House Republican’s perceived lack of faith in the former president who is currently running away with the nomination drew immediate backlash, leading McCarthy to clarify his remarks in a statement to conservative outlet Breitbart News as well as to Trump himself.
“Mr. McCarthy also called Mr. Trump Tuesday, according to three people familiar with the exchange, two of whom characterized the conversation as an apology,” according to The New York Times with other news outlets also reporting the call.
(Video: CNN)
“As usual, the media is attempting to drive a wedge between President Trump and House Republicans as our committees are holding Biden’s Department of Justice accountable for their two-tiered levels of Justice,” McCarthy said in a Truth Social Post.”The only reason Biden is using his weaponized federal government to go after President Trump is because he is Biden’s strongest political opponent, as polling continues to show. Just look at the numbers this morning – Trump is stronger today than he was in 2016.”
(Image: Screengrab/Truth Social)
According to Politico, McCarthy’s backtracking has done little to assuage “the fury in Trump’s inner circle” who, according to the usual anonymous sources in “people familiar with the matter,” say they feel that the speaker “has taken advantage of the former president when it benefits him and failed to show unflinching loyalty in return. They don’t understand how he could ‘misspeak’ — as McCarthy, we’re told, put it to Trump — on something so critical.”
McCarthy can ill afford to alienate Trump’s House allies, already facing an internal revolt stemming from what many perceived to be the squandering of the new majority’s leverage over the White House in negotiations over the debt ceiling with his surrender to President Joe Biden, he can hardly stand to lose any more support from conservative lawmakers, many of whom were opposed to his ascension to the Speaker’s chair as the successor to his fellow Californian Nancy Pelosi.
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