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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Tuesday he does not know if former President Donald Trump is the “strongest” Republican candidate to compete against President Joe Biden in 2024.
“Can he win that election? Yeah he can,” McCarthy said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “The question is, is he the strongest to win the election?”
“I don’t know that answer,” McCarthy said.
“But can anybody beat Biden? Yeah, anybody can beat Biden. Can Biden beat other people? Yes, Biden can beat them. It’s on any given day,” he added.
The remarks on CNBC offered a rare lapse in McCarthy’s usually firm posture of support for Trump. McCarthy leads a narrow House Republican majority that includes sizeable factions loyal to the former president.
Spokesmen for Trump and McCarthy did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the speaker’s remarks.
Trump is the clear frontrunner in the Republican presidential primary. National polls consistently show him outpacing his nearest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, by hefty double-digit margins.
But Trump also lost to Biden in the 2020 election, was impeached twice, has spent years spreading false claims of widespread election fraud and has seen his latest White House bid rocked by two criminal indictments.
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