Kevin McCarthy walks back comments he made earlier this week about Hillary Clinton's poll numbers and the Benghazi committee. McCarthy walks back comments on Benghazi committee

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Thursday that he regrets remarks he made about Hillary Clinton and the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

"This committee was set up for one sole purpose: to find the truth on behalf of the families for four dead Americans," the California Republican said in an evening interview with Fox News' Bret Baier. "Now, I did not intend to imply in any way that that work is political. Of course it is not. Look at the way they have carried themselves out."


The mini-firestorm started when McCarthy on Tuesday bragged to Fox News’ Sean Hannity that “everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi Special Committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.”

The comments undermined House Benghazi Chairman Trey Gowdy’s (R-S.C.) efforts to keep his panel’s work focused on the Benghazi attacks in 2012 and stay above the political fray. Multiple Republicans on Thursday tried to contain the fallout, and clarify the committee's intent.

McCarthy said on Thursday evening that he had spoken to Gowdy and expressed the view that they have rightly conducted their work in an apolitical way. "No one questions Trey's integrity or this committee. It was never my intention to ever imply that this committee was political, because we all know it is not," he said, while acknowledging that he should have come out right after he made the remarks to clarify.

He released a statement on Wednesday to that effect.

Pressed on whether this is what his Republican colleagues should expect if he becomes speaker, McCarthy was firm. "Look this is not what you're going to see as speaker of the House," he said, once again repeating that the committee was created "for one sole purpose, that's the work the committee has done, never my intention to imply anything, and that's—I want to be very clear with my colleagues, very clear with this country, of where we're going."