Last night the New York Times reported that Speaker McCarthy called Trump yesterday to apologize after his remark on CNBC about Trump not being the strongest candidate to win the general.

Here’s what they wrote:

His latest difficulties began on Tuesday morning when, during an interview with CNBC, Mr. McCarthy wondered whether it would be good for the party to have Mr. Trump as its presidential nominee given his legal troubles.

“Can he win that election? Yeah, he can win that election,” Mr. McCarthy said. “The question is, is he the strongest to win the election; I don’t know that answer.”

The comment irked Mr. Trump’s allies, setting off an urgent effort by Mr. McCarthy to walk it back. He contacted Breitbart News, the right-wing news outlet, to offer an exclusive interview in which he said the former president was “stronger today than he was in 2016” and blamed the media for “attempting to drive a wedge between President Trump and House Republicans.”

“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,” Mr. McCarthy told Breitbart in comments he later provided as a written statement.

Mr. McCarthy also called Mr. Trump Tuesday, according to three people familiar with the exchange, two of whom characterized the conversation as an apology.

McCarthy knew he screwed up. The fact that he called Trump just shows how much he feels he needs the former president’s support. He clearly doesn’t want to get on Trump’s bad side.