House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy withdrew from the race to succeed Speaker John Boehner on Thursday, an unexpected move that has thrown the House into chaos.
McCarthy, who had been groomed as Boehner’s replacement, dropped out without warning during the House Republicans’ closed-door meeting to select their speaker nominee, reported CNN. Boehner had been set to resign at the end of the month.
“I think I shocked some of you, huh?” McCarthy said to reporters after his decision.
Currently, no clear successor has emerged, leaving Boehner stuck in a twisted congressional purgatory. McCarthy, who drew flak last week for suggesting that the House's committee on Benghazi was an attempt to hurt Hillary Clinton's poll numbers, said that he was not the one to unite the increasingly fractious Republican party.
“If we're going to unite and be strong, we need a new face to do that,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy’s sudden announcement left many Republicans “visibly shaken and nearly speechless” inside the large hearing room in the Capitol complex, according to the NY Times. GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump has wasted no time inserting himself into the story, partially taking credit for McCarthy’s failed bid.
Trump had suggested McCarthy wasn’t tough enough for the job, saying, “They're giving me a lot of credit for that because I said you really need someone very, very, tough and very smart.”
“Ya know smart goes with tough, I know tough people that aren't smart that's the worst,” Trump said Thursday at a campaign stop. “We need smart, we need tough, we need the whole package."