Kevin McCarthy defends nominating Trump after conviction

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) defended the Republican Party’s move to still nominate former President Trump despite him being convicted in his hush money trial last week.

CNN’s Manu Raju pressed McCarthy on whether it was a good idea for the Republican Party to nominate Trump as their party’s candidate after he was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records last week.

“Is it a good idea … that Donald Trump is the nominee? The answer is 100 percent yes. Will Donald Trump win this presidency? The answer is yes,” McCarthy said on CNN’s “Inside Politics.”

“And it’s interesting. I was watching the earlier part of your show. And I get the verdict has just come in. The question is should it even have gone to trial? The majority of Americans understand that if Donald Trump did not run for president, this never would have gotten to trial,” he added.

Trump is slated to officially become the Republican Party’s nominee for president during the Republican National Committee’s convention over the summer. His sentencing hearing in the hush money case is scheduled for July 11, just four days before the convention kicks off.

Republicans rushed to Trump’s defense shortly after the verdict was read last Thursday, with many of them calling the case politically motivated.

Raju asked McCarthy later on whether Republicans should be concerned about losing independent or women voters due to the guilty verdict.

“Joe Biden is running on, democracy’s on the ballot, Biden economics. These are the two driving things that people are opposed to. Do people want four more years of this? This is where people are missing really what is going on with the American public,” he said, without saying whether he had concerns about losing independent or women voters.