Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) knows how utterly unfit Donald Trump is for the presidency, yet he continuously genuflected to the man. Now McCarthy has been removed from the speakership by the Trump ally Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) (together with the Democratic Party), and Trump took not the slightest action to save McCarthy from the motion to vacate the speakership, which passed on Tuesday afternoon.
Thus McCarthy joins a long line of people who attempted — through folly, necessity, cravenness, or simple lack of self-respect — to partner with Trump and in the end got nothing in return for their misplaced loyalty.
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McCarthy whored himself for Trump and Trump stays silent.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) October 3, 2023
Remember everyone else who took Trump’s side whom Trump could have helped but didn’t. Jeff Sessions was Trump’s first mainstream Republican ally, yet Trump constantly belittled and denigrated him. When Sessions wanted to return to the Senate, Trump supported Sessions's opponent.
Ex-Speaker Paul Ryan in 2016 eventually endorsed Trump and then got stabbed in the back. Trump praised Ryan’s white nationalist primary opponent and refused to endorse Ryan in that congressional primary.
Trump, from the moment he became an adult, has stiffed everyone who entered into partnership with him. He stiffed his employees, he ripped off his students at Trump University, he cheated on his wives — and he probably considers all of these former relationships to be Trump victories.
McCarthy knew all this but still tried to cling to Trump.
The California Republican knew that Trump’s behavior, especially after he lost the 2020 election and refused to concede, was destroying the party and harming the country, and yet weeks later, he visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago and smilingly shook hands with the man for the cameras. The goal of this meeting was reportedly “to make peace with the ex-president.”
This year, McCarthy praised Trump’s candidacy, calling himself “very high” on Trump 2024.
Again, McCarthy knows better. He knows Trump is unconservative and knows Trump is bad for the party and bad for the country. Yet he continues to back him.
And now, in McCarthy’s moment of vulnerability, Trump was nowhere to be found. McCarthy lost.
Will any Republican learn a lesson from this?