House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday told CNBC that he was unsure whether Donald Trump was the GOP’s “strongest” presidential candidate going into 2024. Just hours later, he backtracked.
In an interview with Breitbart later that day, McCarthy claimed he didn’t mean for his earlier statement to be a knock on Trump.
“As usual, the media is attempting to drive a wedge between President Trump and House Republicans as our committees are holding Biden’s DOJ accountable for their two-tiered levels of justice,” McCarthy said. “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.”
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McCarthy said he’s encouraged by Trump’s polling—which has largely been unaffected by his recent federal indictment.
“Just look at the numbers this morning,” McCarthy continued, citing a Tuesday Morning Consult poll that has Trump leading Biden in a hypothetical 2024 election 44% to 41%. “Trump is stronger today than he was in 2016.”
The apparent about-face from McCarthy comes after he was questioned about Trump’s presidential odds against Biden by CNBC’s Joe Kernen Tuesday morning—to which McCarthy responded with a slew of hypothetical questions.
“Can he win that election? Yeah, he can. The question is, is he the strongest to win the election? I don’t know that answer,” McCarthy said. “But can somebody, can anybody beat Biden? Yeah, anybody can beat Biden. Can Biden beat other people? Yes, Biden can beat them. It’s on any given day.”
The House speaker’s remarks drew outrage among those aligned with Trump, currently the frontrunner in the crowded Republican primary field.
“I’ve been fielding calls on this since it happened,” one ally told CNN. “People are not happy. What was he thinking?”
McCarthy, who has not yet given his primary endorsement, added on CNBC that he believes Trump’s “policies are better, straightforward than Biden’s policies.”
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