House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reportedly angered those close to Donald Trump on Tuesday when he questioned whether the former president is the “strongest” 2024 candidate.
“Can he win that election? Yeah he can,” McCarthy said when asked about Trump’s 2024 prospects during an interview on CNBC on Tuesday. “The question is, is he the strongest to win the election – I don’t know that answer.”
McCarthy did say that he believes Trump can beat Biden, however, and said Trump’s policies are good for the country when asked if it would be good for the GOP to have Trump as its nominee.
“Republicans get to select their nominee. I think if you want to go sheer policy to policy, it’s not good for Republicans, its good for America. Trump’s policies are better, straightforward than Biden policy,” the speaker said.
McCarthy’s remarks are “not going down well in Trump world,” according to New York Times political reporter Jonathan Swan.
One unnamed Trump ally reportedly told CNN, “I’ve been fielding calls on this since it happened. People are not happy. What was he thinking?”
The network reported that sources close to the former president believe he helped McCarthy win the House speakership earlier this year after 15 rounds of voting. McCarthy finally clinched the speakership after Trump made calls to the remaining Republican holdouts.
“I do want to especially thank President Trump,” McCarthy told reporters at the time. “I don’t think anybody should doubt his influence. He was with me from the beginning . . . he was all in.”
“He would call me, and he would call others. He really was — I was just talking to him tonight — helping get those final votes,” McCarthy said. “What he’s really saying, really, for the party and the country, that we have to come together. We have to focus on the economy. We’ve got to focus, make our borders secure. We gotta do so much work to do, and he was a great influence to make that all happen. So, thank you, President Trump.”
McCarthy’s comments come as a new NBC poll released Sunday shows Florida governor Ron DeSantis leading President Biden by six points in swing states, while Trump falls behind Biden by two points.
The same poll found DeSantis and Biden tied at 47 percent in a head-to-head matchup nationwide, while Biden leads Trump 49 percent to 45 percent.
Still, Trump leads DeSantis 51 percent to 22 percent among GOP primary voters nationwide, the poll found. Trump has seen a boost in support since April, when he notched 46 percent support to DeSantis’s 31 percent.