At first glance, you would think that Trump would be supporting one of the extremists, not McCarthy. After all, McCarthy said some pretty harsh things about him after January 6, and Trump is not a man to forgive and forget. How do we explain the apparently inexplicable?
Trump believes true loyalty is the product of power and fear, not love and common goals. He, like everyone else, knows he has McCarthy’s balls in his pocket. In that sense, McCarthy is a better bet than even, say, Matt Gaetz.