Kevin McCarthy says he's personally lobbied Trump not to make a 2024 announcement until after the midterms

• House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is urging Trump not to announce a 2024 campaign before the midterms.
• "My point to him has always (been), 'Let's go win '22,'" McCarthy told reporters, per CNN.

Top House Republican Kevin McCarthy says he's encouraged former President Donald Trump not to announce a 2024 presidential campaign before the 2022 midterms.

"My point to him has always (been), 'Let's go win '22,'" McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday, according to CNN's Melanie Zanona.

—Melanie Zanona (@MZanona) July 27, 2022

Trump is itching to launch his 2024 presidential campaign before the midterms and could do so as soon as September, according to reports.

"Well, in my own mind, I've already made that decision, so nothing factors in anymore. In my own mind, I've already made that decision," Trump told New York Magazine in a recent interview. "I would say my big decision will be whether I go before or after [the midterms]."

But some Republicans, including McCarthy, worry that an early Trump announcement could suck up the political oxygen and distract from the GOP's mission of winning back both chambers of Congress.

Both McCarthy and Trump spoke on Tuesday at a Washington, D.C.-based summit of the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-aligned think tank run by Brooke Rollins, Trump's White House domestic policy chief.

Trump's nearly hour-and-a-half-long speech, the first he's given in D.C. since leaving office, began with gory descriptions of violent crime in US cities, including a call to execute drug dealers, before veering into broadsides at transgender athletes and his usual rotation of grievances over the 2020 election and his political foes in Congress.

McCarthy, in conversation with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich right before Trump's speech, offered a more optimistic view of the midterms, saying House Republicans will roll out a "Commitment to America" campaign platform to "lock in a conservative majority for the decade."

"Our number one bill is going to be about protecting the American people, making us energy-independent, lowering the gas prices, securing your border, and holding Washington accountable," McCarthy said. "That will be a breath of fresh air."