House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Monday he believes Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump is conservative, though he stopped well short of endorsing him to lead the GOP ticket this fall.
“I think Donald Trump is a conservative,” McCarthy, R-Calif., said to a reporter during a press gathering in the Capitol. “He has identified himself as a Republican. He’s been in the business world. I’ve seen actions he’s taken. I take him as a conservative.”
But McCarthy suggested Trump’s lack of experience makes it hard to determine his politics.
“What has he voted on?” McCarthy asked.
Trump, who has been critical of congressional Republicans and is running as an outsider candidate, has few GOP allies on Capitol Hill. Yet he is leading in Iowa and New Hampshire polls and is the national front-runner.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who is also running as an anti-Washington establishment candidate, is also lacking support in either the Senate or the House. At a Republican retreat last month, lawmakers saw poll numbers showing Cruz would do more damage to the GOP down-ballot than any other candidate, including Trump.
McCarthy was asked how the GOP would react if either Cruz or Trump won Iowa.
McCarthy downplayed Iowa’s importance in determining the party’s nominee.
“I trust the American people,” He said. “I think they’ll get it right.”
A victory for Trump or Cruz in Iowa, McCarthy said, “means it’s not over yet. I think New Hampshire and the others have probably mattered more for who is the Republican nominee than Iowa.”
McCarthy has not endorsed a candidate but said the nominee “has to put forward a very clear, optimistic agenda for the future.” Foreign policy and national security are paramount in the polls, McCarthy added.
“And if you are going to deal with that subject, I think experience matters,” McCarthy said. “Showing a philosophy and keeping your word.”
McCarthy turned on the Democrats when asked whether the GOP front-runners have adequate foreign policy experience.
“Well, we’ve got Bernie Sanders, who for his honeymoon went to the Soviet Union,” McCarthy said. “I trust the American public to weigh every experience that somebody has to make decisions as the next president.”
