Former President Donald Trump during an interview on NBC News on Tuesday sidestepped a question regarding whether he supports Representative Kevin McCarthy who has so far failed to win enough votes in order to become the House Speaker.
McCarthy, the former House Minority Leader, failed to win the majority vote after three different votes on Tuesday. According to the New York Times, the chamber adjourned a little before 5:30 and will reconvene with a fourth vote on Wednesday at noon.
During the brief phone call, Trump, who had previously expressed support for McCarthy and had urged Republicans to vote for him as Speaker, did not say whether or not he still supports McCarthy for the position. Instead, Trump responded to the reporter by saying, “We’ll see what happens.”
He continued to say that he was receiving a lot of calls from people who wanted to have his support but that he is not willing to say anything more about that. Instead, he is going to wait and see how everything plays out.
Trump had first endorsed McCarthy for Speaker in June, but this endorsement has so far not been enough to convince some of Trump’s closest allies that they should support McCarthy.
Florida Representative Matt Gaetz is leading a vocal opposition against McCarthy and he was one of the 20 Republicans who voted for Ohio Representative Jim Jordan to become Speaker instead of McCarthy. In response to Trump’s comments, Gaetz wrote on Twitter that Trump knew that McCarthy would not be able to “get there.”
