At his news conference on Sunday in the hotel’s “Citrus Garden,” where guests in gym clothes and terry cloth robes wandered about in the background, Mr. McCarthy kicked things off by talking about his early moves to roll back pandemic precautions at the Capitol, including ending proxy voting, and establish a select committee to investigate China.
He appeared particularly proud of the camaraderie he said he had established with Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and minority leader. He stressed that he has gone out of his way to treat his counterpart the way he would have liked to be treated by Speaker Nancy Pelosi when he served as minority leader. On several occasions, he cited the economist Milton Friedman, the godfather of libertarian economic policies, a sign of the more ideas-driven discourse he planned for the three-day retreat.
How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.
“There isn’t a need that everything has to be partisan,” Mr. McCarthy said.
Why had he not invited two prominent Florida Republicans, Mr. Trump or Gov. Ron DeSantis, to join the group?
“They’re issue retreats,” he explained. “I don’t bring many people in to talk to us.”
Mr. McCarthy carefully avoided questions about whether he planned to endorse Mr. Trump, whom he has credited with helping him over the finish line in his quest to become speaker. But over the weekend, he issued a defiant tweet savaging Mr. Bragg’s investigation, and as the retreat got underway, he authorized three of his committee chairmen to insert themselves into the ongoing inquiry, demanding that the prosecutor provide communications, documents and testimony.
If Mr. McCarthy had hoped to use the annual retreat to highlight issues like the economy, the border and the banking crisis, those plans were once again overshadowed by his relationship to Mr. Trump.
It is a position he and his conference have repeatedly chosen.
“There’s this myth that Republicans in Washington want to ‘move on’ from Trump,” said Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist and former House G.O.P. oversight adviser. “They aren’t hostages; they are volunteers. These retreats have become an exercise in futility for House Republicans because ultimately, they ignore their own political self-interest, double-down on a loser and end up underperforming in the election.”
Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who was supposed to brief reporters about immigration and “securing America’s border,” was instead grilled about his extraordinary letter demanding documents and testimony from Mr. Bragg, whom he accused of “an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority.”
