‘Trump Wasn’t Relevant’: CBS Correspondent Scott MacFarlane Peels Back Curtain on McCarthy’s Brutal Speaker Battle
Kevin McCarthy’s long battle to become speaker of the House erupted in a dramatic, days-long saga last week involving rowdy speeches, a near fist-fight, and eleventh-hour phone calls from former President Donald Trump. CBS News’ indefatigable congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane provided relentless insider reporting on the wild first week of the new Congress.
He told Mediaite that despite Trump claiming credit for McCarthy’s ultimate triumph, the former president wasn’t particularly relevant to the process.
On a new episode of The Interview, MacFarlane spoke with Mediaite editor in chief Aidan McLaughlin about McCarthy’s five day fight for the speakership, which involved some heavy lobbying from Trump. While at first his endorsement didn’t change a single vote, the former president took credit once McCarthy emerged victorious.
“Trump took credit, of course, for McCarthy getting over the line,” McLaughlin said. “How much do you think Trump’s influence had any sort of effect here?”
“I have big questions about the legitimacy of his impactfulness in this speaker’s race,” MacFarlane said. “Because we were staking out the meetings outside Tom Emmer’s office, the new Republican whip, where the key players were walking in, key players were walking out, they were talking to us about what was important. They never once seemed to breathe Trump’s name in an impactful way, as if Trump wasn’t a figure in the negotiations,” he said.
“Trump wasn’t relevant to the discussions coming in and out of those meetings,” MacFarlane explained. “So for those who credit him, I’d like to hear more about what granular level of impact Donald Trump had because they just weren’t breathing his name, going in and out of the meetings, that would ultimately save Kevin McCarthy, his speakership and would bridge this gap between the McCarthy team and this at one point stubbornly anti-McCarthy group that eventually voted for him or allowed him to pass through.”
Not only were Republicans ignoring Trump during their negotiations, but even the most pro-Trump members of Congress publicly rejected his pleas to support McCarthy.
“Matt Gaetz mocked Trump for backing McCarthy and had a snide comment about it,” McLaughlin said. “I was pretty shocked to see even those most pro-Trump members of Congress dismiss Trump’s endorsement as having any relevance.”
“Not that it was a net negative,” MacFarlane said. “Just that it was irrelevant. It wasn’t like he was playing badly in the room necessarily.”
“Not that he was radioactive to the people who were supporting him or opposing him, just that he wasn’t being discussed. And I think that may be the most frustrating thing to Trump of all, that he wasn’t relevant to the conversation. He wasn’t being talked about on cable news. And I wonder how he’s going to react to that,” MacFarlane concluded.
During the interview, McLaughlin and MacFarlane also discussed George Santos’s first week in Congress and the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol.
Listen above via The Interview podcast.
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