Former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy said President Donald Trump is operating with a level of political power not seen in decades, arguing that Congress has ceded its constitutional authority.
Speaking at the Harvard University Kennedy School Institute of Politics, McCarthy compared Trump’s influence to that of past presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
“Right now, Trump has more power than Reagan,” McCarthy said. “We haven’t seen a president like this in either party since Roosevelt.”
He argued that Trump is effectively consolidating roles typically held by congressional leadership.
“He’s the whip and the speaker,” McCarthy said, referencing the positions responsible for counting votes and setting the legislative agenda in the House.
McCarthy tied that dynamic to what he described as a shift away from the Constitution’s allocation of power. “Article I is the power of Congress,” he said. “That has kind of been usurped right now.”
Still, McCarthy suggested that balance could eventually return, noting that the current political environment is “a much different play.”
He also elevated Trump’s political stature above that of past Republican leaders, including former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.
“I would say Trump is much bigger than Newt,” McCarthy said.
On foreign policy, McCarthy defended Trump’s unconventional negotiation style, particularly in the context of negotiations in the Iran war.
“He will negotiate tough, where he will threaten everything, and nobody knows where he’s going to go,” McCarthy said. “It’s unconventional. We may not be used to it.”
But he argued that unpredictability could serve a strategic purpose.
“If it denies [Iran] from having a nuclear weapon,” McCarthy said, “I think it would be pretty good.”
WHO HAS BEEN KILLED SO FAR DURING THE IRAN WAR?
On Wednesday, just hours after the fragile ceasefire began, Trump said the United States could be involved in retrieving enriched uranium. The Iranian Supreme National Security Council, however, claimed the U.S. “accepted enrichment” as a part of the ceasefire deal.
“There will be no enrichment of Uranium, and the United States will, working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried (B-2 Bombers) Nuclear ‘Dust,’” Trump said. “It is now, and has been, under very exacting Satellite Surveillance (Space Force!). Nothing has been touched from the date of attack.”