McCarthy: Trump Won Swing States While GOP Senators Lost Them; He Has Performed Better Than Republican Senate
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on ABC’s “This Week” roundtable:
MARTHA RADDATZ: Kevin, you’ve said you are a bit worried about the midterms because you say you’re not seeing a clear message from Republicans. What would you tell them about messaging right now? KEVIN MCCARTHY: This is a race on the economy. There’s a lot of things I would have done differently. I would not have recessed the House so often. I would have run bills that are 80-20, have the Democrats vote against it, show where you’re passing things and get stuff done. MARTHA RADDATZ: But what can I ask you? You said at first, look, you know, yes, Trump is on the ballot because he’s successful, but he is about the economy too. KEVIN MCCARTHY: He is about the economy. You brought up a poll earlier. You didn’t bring up the poll that also came out this week that Republicans say Trump is the most respected president, much more so than even Reagan. The problem is Republicans need a four-point more bump to get up. It is a different place than we were on redistricting when Bush was in. There were very few seats. So you do need to draw. When Trump won the presidency, the still lost seats in the House, and he won the popular vote. They still lost seats in the House. He won Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the Republican senators did not. So for Republicans to sit back and say, “Oh, I don’t want Trump out there,” he has performed better than they have. He has raised more money. It is a differential. But go to the Democrats. Yeah, the economy is an issue. And if you ask me about this Canada beef, it’s not Trump. Trump said he had a deal. This is Carney using the election, coming back in the trade agreements at the last minute, trying to leverage it. Why? Because we do have Maine, Michigan and Ohio for the determination of who’s going to win it. So it’s a negotiation play, trying to leverage the election at that time. Tough place to be in. But I think this is all negotiations. We’ll get it taken care of. But we should have been focused the entire time just on the economy, because that’s what they’ll judge you on.
