6 Months Later, Kevin McCarthy Has Not Changed

Bakersfield, California, product Kevin McCarthy may no longer be in the House speaker’s chair, but the traits that got him there — and arguably also resulted in him being the first speaker ever ousted — remained on display Tuesday night.

In an hour-plus talk before a Georgetown University student audience six months after he was unceremoniously stripped of the House’s top job, McCarthy was by turns charming, a tad bitter, and still eager to challenge critical questions with a handy dose of whataboutism.

The talk, entitled “How Strong Is Our Democracy,” allowed questions only from Georgetown students, not members of the press.

And the students had some good ones: In one of the most direct challenges, a student asked McCarthy if he had turned his back on democracy by rehabilitating former president Donald Trump, infamously taking a photo with him at Mar-A-Lago only weeks after he had publicly blamed him for the Jan. 6 sacking of the U.S. Capitol and saying Trump should lead the party.

Once applause for the questioner died down, McCarthy said he had to challenge the premise. “If I let your question stand and just answer it the way it was, then people would think what you said was true,” he said.

“Did I go to Mar-a-Lago? Yeah. But I didn’t say that at Mar-a-Lago, or that basis, right? So that’s not true,” McCarthy said.

He said Trump has asked him to visit while McCarthy was in the area for a fundraiser. He agreed to drop by, he said, without telling anyone else it was happening.

“Thirty minutes later, The New York Times has it. I thought I was going to go by and no one was going to know about it,” he said. Trump asked him if McCarthy or his staff had leaked it, and McCarthy said no. He asked, McCarthy said, if he