Rolling Stone: “According to those with knowledge of the matter, Trump’s hesitance to swoop in and rescue the now-former House Speaker — who for years has been one of the former president’s most pliable defenders and who went to great lengths to rehabilitate Trump mere weeks after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot — was just cold, pragmatic calculation.”
“Per Trump’s apparent calculation, he ‘has friends on both sides’ of the Gaetz-McCarthy conflict, as one person with knowledge of the matter puts it. And as another source who’s known both Trump and McCarthy for years describes it, the former president ‘just didn’t see anything in it for him’ if he were to stick his neck out, only to have McCarthy fall anyway.”
Daily Beast: “Trump’s been a little cagey on whether he supported removing McCarthy. But Matt Gaetz is suggesting Trump was behind his effort.”
