House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been desperately backtracking after he told CNBC on Tuesday he didn’t know if Donald Trump was the “strongest to win the election,” and sources say he called the 2024 GOP candidate pleading for forgiveness. Two people familiar with the matter told CNN that McCarthy made a call to Trump to apologize for the comment the same morning. He claimed he misspoke on CNBC and blamed reporters for taking his candidacy diss out of context, the sources said of the call. Later Tuesday, McCarthy about-faced on his statement in an interview with Breitbart and said “the media is attempting to drive a wedge between President Trump and House Republicans.” Instead, he said the focus should be on President Joe Biden’s “weaponized federal government” and the Justice Department’s “two-tiered levels of justice,” seemingly backing the ex-president after his classified documents indictment.
