CNBC Hosts Can’t Contain Laughter As Kevin McCarthy Tries to Compliment Trump: ‘Controlled Himself More Than Normal’

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) joined CNBC’s Squawk Box on Wednesday to discuss the debate the night before between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Anchors Joe Kernen, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin asked McCarthy for his take on what went wrong for Trump and at one point couldn’t hold back some laughter as McCarthy offered Trump a back-handed compliment.

“Will there be another debate?” began the discussion, with McCarthy emphatically saying, “No.”

“There will not be another debate?” Kernen followed up.

“That’s my prediction. I’m not running the campaign. I don’t think either of them want another debate. Kamala Feels she she did what she needed to do. She doesn’t want to make another mistake. I don’t think it’s going to change the outcome,” McCarthy replied.

“For Trump if he can’t control himself, where he gets so aggrieved all the time and goes into the grievance. He had so many opportunities, and I think he went in there with the notion, I am going to highlight her record and what happened, but then he didn’t,” Kernen added.

“Okay, but let’s not overthink it. This is like you had a wedding and it didn’t go exactly as you wanted, but no one else really knows it. Trump controlled…” McCarthy said as Quick interjected, “I think other people noticed.”

“But Trump controlled himself more than normal. Okay,” McCarthy said as the hosts all laughed out loud.

“I don’t think that’s an argument that’s making people feel good,” Quick shot back.

“Okay, from that point of view. Did he miss opportunities? What did she do? Well, I would say she would avoid answering the question, then pivot to something or talk about the crowd size or talk about Wharton, and then be right on one of those. You should just avoid it,” McCarthy continued.

Quick asked, “What does that tell you about his ability to. One of the commentators afterward made a comment about, oh, it may be men are just too emotional to be president.”

“No, not at all. Look, what simply put, did Trump make the tough decisions when it came to Solemiani? Did Trump make the tough decisions that Putin never invaded another country to Trump? Trump make the tough decisions to secure our border. That’s what people are going to look at,” McCarthy concluded.

Watch the clip above via CNBC.