House Majority Leader 'Can Work With Donald Trump' If He Wins
No. 2 House Republican Kevin McCarthy sees a two-man race for the nomination.
— -- Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the No. 2 House Republican, said today he could work with Donald Trump if the New York real estate mogul receives the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.
“I think I can work with Donald Trump,” the California congressman said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
The comments, after Trump’s victory in the South Carolina Republican primary Saturday, are the latest indication that GOP party leaders are coming to terms with the possibility that the front-runner could end up representing the party in November.
McCarthy also said he believes the GOP primary is down to a race between Trump and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, after Sen. Ted Cruz’s third-place showing in South Carolina.
“I thought Cruz probably had the best ability of his mapping out, but not winning in South Carolina, that's very difficult now for him,” he said. “The bigger advantage is to Trump. He's got to momentum. I think there's more than a 50 percent chance he's the nominee.”
While Trump has said he’d work with leaders of both parties if he wins the presidency, he questioned McCarthy’s leadership skills last fall when he was in the running to replace outgoing House Speaker John Boehner.
He later took some of the credit for McCarthy’s dropping out of the speaker race, and suggested his daughter Ivanka would make a good House speaker.