I wonder what McCarthy is thinking about …. He’s probably afraid to say too much for fear of what next leak will prove he’s lying.
Just think about it, he backtracks and lies to the public to make up with Trump shortly after January 6. Here we are over a year later, and his first instincts are to lie about the time he told the truth, and phone Trump for forgiveness.
Definitely a cult.
Trump is a guy who hangs onto certain grudges but McCarthy has learned that if you kiss the guy's behind often enough with photo ops for bonus points, Trump is also a guy who lives "in the now" and will usually let people gloss over their past failures to worship at the altar of Trump every single day.
Trump tends to forgive what happened yesterday so long as the groveling later on is public enough.
The trick is knowing where the line is. Every once in a while someone crosses it with him... like with Jeff Sessions having (properly) recused himself as AG from certain matters related to the Trump campaign fo 2016. Trump has never quit raging about that "betrayal" and talking about perceived disloyalty and disrespect. Hilarious if not so grotesque, since Sessions practically prostrated himself before Trump during his efforts for The Don during the 2016 campaign
With McCarthy, apparently Trump figures the guy could be an ally if the GOP retakes the House. Anyone Trump can use gets a few free passes, I guess. But he manages to extract public adulation for them.
What's funny about all that is that even with some grumbling about McCarthy in the House, he's way more likely to end up Speaker (if the Dems lose majority in November), than Donald Trump is to ever end up on a ticket for 2024. All the Rs are sick of The Don but still fear backlash from his vocal base ahead of the midterms. I'd not be surprised if GOP candidates for the White House in 2024 start popping out of the woodwork all over the place after November 2022.
DeSantis is not going to be the only one out there, even if Trump-endorsed candidates will have done well in the midterms. Trump's got too much baggage. His base is actually part of the GOP's problem and the Rs do know that. Heh, everyone tried to tell them that dismounting the Trump tiger would be dangerous. Pretty soon time to tell them that not dismounting will net them a 2024 top of ticket loss.