Kevin McCarthy's trying to create a legacy, but he can’t give up Trump

The least successful House speaker in history—the only one to be ousted—is taking time out of his revenge agenda to take a stab at rewriting history to somehow make himself the hero. That includes a Georgetown University event called “How Strong Is Our Democracy? With Kevin McCarthy.” Politico reports that despite that title, at “a time when both Democrats and Republicans—for very different reasons—warn that ‘democracy is on the ballot’ in 2024, he didn’t seem to have that level of concern about the stakes.”

McCarthy has been trying to position himself as some kind of elder statesman for the GOP from just about the moment he got fired from the job. He’s going to have several problems selling the idea that he’s a serious man with serious ideas, starting with the fact that even before he was booted from the speakership, he was presiding over the least productive Congress in generations.