Republican California Rep. Kevin McCarthy explained why he refuses to criticize former President Donald Trump.
During an interview with The New York Times, McCarthy, who was recently ousted as House speaker, warned Trump against focusing his 2024 reelection bid on “revenge,” which could lead to him losing without an optimistic message.
“I do not criticize him on television because I don’t think it’s right, and I know it drives him crazy,” McCarthy told NYT reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin at the DealBook Summit when discussing the former president.
The congressman said he and Trump have “an interesting relationship,” saying that he did not expect the former president to support him when he was ousted in October. McCarthy added that the pair “have very clear personal conversations on where we go” and that Trump is “his own person.”
Despite some differing viewpoints, however, McCarthy maintained that “America would be stronger” if Trump were the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nominee, suggesting that “if Biden is the Democrat nominee, Trump will win” and “Republicans will have a very big night.”
McCarthy went on to advise the former president to pick fellow Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley as his vice president. Haley has ticked up in recent polls, beating Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the top Trump alternative in the Republican primary.
“But this is a bigger question for Trump: If his campaign is about renew, rebuild and restore, he’ll win. If it’s about revenge, he’ll lose,” the California Republican told the reporter. “The only person that’s going to determine that is – not his campaign ad – is him.”
This comes as McCarthy recently announced that he would resign from Congress but vowed to continue to recruit Republicans to run for office.
“No matter the odds, or personal cost, we did the right thing. That may seem out of fashion in Washington these days, but delivering results for the American people is still celebrated across the country. It is in this spirit that I have decided to depart the House at the end of this year to serve America in new ways. I know my work is only getting started,” he wrote in an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal.
