Kevin McCarthy is having a great old time.
He travels the country giving six-figure speeches, playing a pundit and elder statesman on television, speaking at high-profile political forums and, most importantly, plotting revenge of those who are behind his unceremonious ouster from the post of Speaker of the House.
Eight Republican lawmakers joined 208 Democrats to unseat the former Bakersfield congressman, the first time in history a House leader has been voted out. Rather than hang on, McCarthy left office at the end of 2023.
Two of the eight Republicans joined him in retirement. Three others – Bob Good of Virginia, Eli Crane of Arizona and Nancy Mace of South Carolina – face serious primary challenges. McCarthy worked behind the scenes to end their congressional careers, strategizing and directing money and other resources to their opponents.
“He wants to hold accountable those who pushed him out,” said a Central Valley politician who has had a decades-long relationship with McCarthy.
Like most, the agent asked not to be cited by name, in order to remain on good terms with the former speaker. McCarthy declined to be interviewed, perhaps because of the manner – irresponsible and morally bankrupt – in which your friendly columnist portrayed him.
McCarthy’s main enemy, according to several people who spoke to him, is Rep. Matt Gaetz, who was the main instigator of McCarthy’s downfall. The pugnacious Florida Republican is unlikely to lose his House seat, but he could run for governor in 2026.
Learn more: Kevin McCarthy ousted as president, plunging Washington into chaos
During an appearance this month at Georgetown University, McCarthy threw a depth charge at Gaetz, insisting that the only reason he lost the president’s job is because “one person wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old.”
“Did he do it?” McCarthy added, after claiming for everyone that he had it. “I don’t know.”
The reference concerned allegations that Gaetz paid for sex, including sex with an underage girl, while he was in Congress. The Justice Department investigated the Florida lawmaker and decided not to file charges. The House Ethics Committee continues its investigation.
“McCarthy is a liar,” Gaetz retorted on social media. “That’s why he’s no longer a speaker.”
McCarthy is a political animal to the core, and the presidency is a position he has coveted for much of his career. His mandate – less than nine months – barely lasted long enough to pose for the portrait that will one day hang in the Capitol.
But now, a political associate said, McCarthy feels free. He is no longer responsible for leading a fragile, fragile Republican majority – over to you, Mike Johnson! – and can devote himself fully to what has long been McCarthy’s strong point: campaigns and elections.
He remains close to the many lawmakers he recruited and helped get into office and stays in touch with a nationwide donor network built over the years as one of the Republican Party’s top congressional strategists .
Maintaining Republican control of the House is, of course, a top priority for McCarthy in November. So is the re-election of members like Orange County’s Young Kim and Michelle Steel and Oregon’s Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who have helped diversify the House GOP’s snow-white ranks.
Learn more: Column: McCarthy’s fall was sudden, but it lasted a long time
The recent Georgetown seminar, billed as a discussion on the sustainability of American democracy, highlighted McCarthy’s strength and failures.
He was charming. He was affable. He was self-deprecating, offering to answer students’ questions for as long as they wanted, considering that “I don’t have a job anymore.”
McCarthy broke with former President Trump and many Republican colleagues by supporting U.S. aid to Ukraine and comparing Vladimir Putin to Hitler. He declared, without the slightest hesitation, that Joe Biden had won the 2020 election, thus debunking Trump’s persistent lies about his defeat.
He also dodged and deflected.
McCarthy drew a false equivalence between the recriminations of sour grape Democrats who lost the election and the pernicious legal and tactical fights that Trump and his allies waged to overturn Biden’s victory.
He suggested, with a straight face, that Trump is “simply defending due process” when he refers to the violent perpetrators of January 6 as “hostages.”
He said he’s never heard Trump talk about immigrants “poisoning the blood” of America, which is only plausible considering McCarthy just arrived on Earth via spaceship since March.
The former president, who remains in contact with the ex-president, has been mentioned as a potential recruit for a second Trump administration. He hasn’t done much to hurt his chances.
Learn more: From Bakersfield to Speaker of the House: Kevin McCarthy’s DC career in photos
One thing that McCarthy apparently doesn’t seem to be interested in, say several people who have spoken to him, is raking in big money as an influence peddler.
Although he earns between $100,000 and $150,000 per speech, according to a political ally, McCarthy could earn much more with much less effort by capitalizing on his connections in Washington and Sacramento.
But Cathy Abernathy, a Republican strategist who has known McCarthy for decades, said he is much happier and better suited to working in the campaign field.
“There are a lot of lobbyists out there,” said Abernathy, who hired McCarthy in 1987 as an intern at then-Republic. Bill Thomas’ office in Bakersfield. “His skills and talent serve people, politics, and strategizing to elect a viable Republican majority.”
McCarthy is particularly adept, she says, “at understanding the politics of a district, the type of candidate that’s right for a district, the types of campaigns that work with the voters in that district.”
And now McCarthy has an added incentive to exploit that knowledge, beyond his lifelong affinity for Republican candidates and causes: Payback.
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This story was originally published in the Los Angeles Times.
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