Kevin McCarthy refrains from comment on Ron DeSantis 2024 run

Kevin McCarthy. Image via AP.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy doesn’t have much to say on a former House colleague’s presidential run.

Asked about the Ron DeSantis campaign launch at the U.S. Capitol, the California Republican was terse about whether the Florida Governor would be a “good President.”

“Look, I think there are a lot of people who would be a good President. I’m focused on the debt ceiling,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy hasn’t had much to say about the Governor in recent months, with his most extended comments involving the ongoing conflict with The Walt Disney Co.

McCarthy panned DeSantis’ joke that a prison could be built near Disney World.

“This is a big employer inside Florida,” he added, in comments reported by Newsweek. “I think the Governor should sit down with them. I don’t think the idea of building a prison next to a place where you bring your family is the best idea. I think it’d be much better if you sat down and solved the problems.”

McCarthy has said more glowing things about DeSantis’s job as Governor in the past, meanwhile.

“Florida has a great governor in Ron DeSantis. Wish I could say the same for my home of California,” McCarthy posted to Facebook in 2021.

McCarthy, predictably given his position in the House and his need to keep Republicans loyal to Donald Trump in line to maintain his Speakership, has downplayed the former President’s legal woes amid his 2024 campaign.

“I think in your heart of hearts you know, too, that you think this is just political,” McCarthy said in March. “And I think that’s what the rest of the country thinks, and we’re kind of tired of that.”