Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says that “you may see a very different Trump” after winning the 2024 presidential election.

Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy said this on Wednesday morning President-elect Donald Trump could be “different” in a second term since he knows the job now and won’t be running for re-election.

“So maybe you’re seeing a very different Trump,” McCarthy said on “CBS Mornings” when asked about Trump’s ability to unite the country as president.

Hours after Trump was expected to win During the 2024 presidential campaign amid a sharply divided electorate, McCarthy urged Democrats that Trump “is not such a hard-nosed person, philosophically speaking, in a hard-right position.”

“He has unique positions that would go to center,” McCarthy continued. “People get Trump syndrome where they just don’t even want to work with him, and he’ll have his back, and then if you fight him, he’ll fight you. But I think if you go to him, he’s probably more willing to take certain positions.

McCarthy, a Republican who represented California in the House and was ousted as speaker in 2023, dismissed concerns from officials who worked in Trump’s first administration that the president-elect was unfit for office – or posed a threat.

“Remember, we are America. We don’t have dictators,” McCarthy said. “We have different branches of government. So we have a check and balance system.”

McCarthy, who noted that he doesn’t want a role in the Trump administration and that it would be “better to serve him from the outside,” said he is eager to see a presidential candidate win the popular vote and the Electoral College this year, and argued that this would be better for the country.

“We have to put an end to this and we have to be able to govern,” McCarthy said. “That’s what I think the country wants to see on both sides.”

The former speaker encouraged Democrats to “use this opportunity to rebuild their party,” which he said was like “rebuilding a team.” The first thing Democrats should do, he argued, is to honestly examine why Harris lost.

McCarthy questioned whether it was the right decision by Democrats for President Biden to leave the race. He said that while he didn’t believe Mr. Biden would have ultimately won, the decision “altered democracy in a way that didn’t give people a voice.” He argued that Democrats were unlikely to select Harris in an open primary process would have.

“They probably would have had a stronger candidate,” McCarthy said.