But as McCarthy’s speakership teetered on the brink Tuesday, Trump stayed resolutely on the sidelines as his acolyte, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), engineered a vote that ultimately ejected McCarthy from his leadership post. Trump’s biggest contribution to the debate came in the form of a mildly worded social media post that simply asked: “Why is it that Republicans are always fighting among themselves, why aren’t they fighting the Radical Left Democrats who are destroying our country?”
McCarthy’s ouster capped a tumultuous tenure as speaker that ended less than nine months after it started. Trump’s limited support for the man he famously called “my Kevin” on the eve of his inauguration encapsulated a relationship that has ebbed and flowed over the years. And it reflected the caution Trump typically exercises in contested situations where weighing in more forcefully — as he often does on a range of issues — carries political risks.
Yet, it’s not clear that a Trump intervention into the House chaos would have saved McCarthy’s gavel. Of the eight Republicans who voted against McCarthy, only three have endorsed Trump for 2024. Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) has endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) is a Trump critic; and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) defeated a Trump-backed primary challenger.
Now, Trump, the runaway polling leader in the Republican race, faces a new chapter of uncertainty on Capitol Hill. People familiar with their dynamic said the two men worked well together in private, with an understanding of the transactional advantages that each brought to the table. Yet, that relationship also contributed to the ill will Democrats had toward McCarthy: On Tuesday, not a single one voted to help save him from the ire of a breakaway group of hard-right House members.
On Tuesday night, Trump’s campaign did not comment on McCarthy’s defeat and instead pointed to his social media post. One person close to Trump, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to comment candidly, suggested that the outcome might have been different if McCarthy had endorsed Trump early on in the former president’s quest for the 2024 nomination.
Trump signaled over the weekend that he would not weigh in directly on the contentious Capitol Hill showdown. During a campaign stop in Iowa on Sunday, he said he had “always had a great relationship” with McCarthy. “He said very nice things about me and the job I’ve done, so I appreciate that,” Trump added.
After McCarthy was removed in the historic vote, Gaetz suggested that Trump was on his side: “I would say that my conversations with the former president leave me with great confidence that I’m doing the right thing.” McCarthy disputed that notion in a news conference. “I doubt if that’s true,” McCarthy said when asked about Gaetz’s assertion.
Gaetz told reporters Monday that he had spoken to Trump but did not disclose the details of their conversation. One Trump ally said the former president was upset about efforts by some House Republicans seeking to expel Gaetz from the GOP conference.
Trump also was angered by some of McCarthy’s comments. In a June interview with CNBC, McCarthy suggested that his support for his old governing partner was in doubt. “Is he the strongest to win the election? I don’t know that answer,” McCarthy said then, before speaking with Trump and telling a conservative website that Trump was “stronger today than he was in 2016.”
But McCarthy had been moving closer to Trump as the former speaker faced a showdown with hard-liners in his conference who are political followers of the former president. When the fight over a government shutdown was growing last month, he made a point of attacking Trump’s principal rival for the GOP nomination.
“President Trump is beating Biden right now in the polls. He’s stronger than he has ever been in this process,” McCarthy said on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” in September. “And, look, I served with Ron DeSantis. He’s not at the same level as President Trump by any shape or form. He would not have gotten elected [governor] without President Trump’s endorsement.”
Those comments did not go unnoticed by Trump, one person familiar with the relationship said.
McCarthy had often played interpreter and pitchman for Trump among more skeptical elements of his party while at the same time portraying himself as someone who influenced the president at critical moments. Both men have used each other at times to gain support in different parts of the Republican coalition. McCarthy also had found himself walking a tightrope, as when he supported the reelection of House members who had supported Trump’s impeachment after Jan. 6, 2021.
“I stay close to him. We have a good relationship. But he and his team don’t have a veto power on what we do,” McCarthy would tell donors during the midterm campaign season.
Trump meanwhile had sought advice from McCarthy, relying heavily at times on the Californian’s counsel when it came to legislative maneuvering and congressional endorsements.
“McCarthy was the majority leader when President Trump was in office,” said Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Tex.) — who has endorsed Trump — before the ouster vote. “They clearly built a relationship and built a rapport.”
A second person familiar with the relationship acknowledged its ups and downs but said it had proved resilient, even if Trump and McCarthy did not always align philosophically or personally.
McCarthy was the first member of House GOP leadership to endorse Trump for president after it was clear the New York businessman would be the GOP nominee for 2016, becoming a Trump delegate at that year’s party convention. Weeks later, McCarthy was captured in a private audio recording saying that he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin was paying then-candidate Trump. “Swear to God,” McCarthy said. McCarthy aides said he had been joking.
Under then-Speaker Paul D. Ryan, McCarthy continued to play the role of the House leadership’s main contact with Trump, repeatedly traveling with the former president and later dialing in to Oval Office meetings. On noticing on an Air Force One flight that Trump ate only red and pink Starburst candies, McCarthy sent a jar of only those colors as a gift to the president.
After becoming minority leader in early 2019, McCarthy made courting Trump a top priority, persuading him to endorse every GOP incumbent in the House. Trump recorded more than 50 telephone rallies and endorsements for House GOP candidates. He and McCarthy attended a 2019 UFC fight together in New York.
Their relationship reached a low after Trump failed to tell his supporters to stop attacking the U.S. Capitol for hours on Jan. 6, 2021. McCarthy later said Trump bore responsibility for the attack and should be censured, but not impeached, infuriating the former president. Weeks later, Trump persuaded McCarthy to visit him at his Mar-a-Lago resort and then posed for a picture with him, the first major step in Trump’s regaining his stature among party leaders in Washington.
During McCarthy’s speakership fight in January, one of the people familiar with the relationship said that Trump initially made calls to holdouts without being asked directly by McCarthy to do so. Trump later took credit for assisting McCarthy with clinching the gavel, saying on social media: “The Fake News Media was, believe it or not, very gracious in their reporting that I greatly helped Kevin McCarthy attain the position of Speaker of the House.”
The two men also have traded top staffers. Brian Jack, a former White House director of political affairs for Trump, became one of McCarthy’s top political advisers during the 2022 midterms, before returning to Trump’s orbit as a senior adviser on Trump’s current presidential campaign.
During the 2022 midterms, Jack, as an employee of McCarthy’s, prepared polling and research on House districts, which have been part of ongoing discussions informed by data with candidates and campaign committees about where Trump should go and when, according to a close Trump adviser.
Yet, it was Gaetz who took a victory lap Tuesday evening. During an appearance on Fox News, Gaetz continued to taunt McCarthy as he highlighted the strength of his own relationship with Trump. “You know who you won’t see on the campaign trail at a big [Trump] rally? Kevin McCarthy,” Gaetz said on the “Ingraham Angle,” a Fox News show. “Because, if Kevin McCarthy took the stage at a Trump rally, he would be booed off of it like [Senator] Lindsey Graham.”
Mariana Alfaro and Colby Itkowitz contributed to this report.
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