Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump leaves a campaign event September 23, 2015 in Columbia, South Carolina. Sean Rayford/Getty Images The two leading Republican presidential candidates — real-estate mogul Donald Trump and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson — had very different reactions to the mayhem in Washington on Thursday.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) was expected to easily have the speaker's race sewn up.

But instead, McCarthy suddenly exited the race and threw the legislative chamber into disarray.

Trump, the Republican front-runner, said McCarthy made the right decision because he wasn't tough enough.



"Great, Kevin McCarthy drops out of SPEAKER race. We need a really smart and really tough person to take over this very important job!" Trump tweeted. "Washington (D.C.) is such a mess - nothing works! I will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! It's not going to happen with anyone else."

Later in the day, Trump gave a campaign speech in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he said unnamed people were giving him "a lot of credit" for McCarthy's exit because he publicly called for House Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) replacement to be a tough negotiator.

"Kevin McCarthy is out," he told his cheering audience. "They're giving me a lot of credit for that because I said, 'You really need somebody very, very tough. And very smart.' You know smart goes with tough. ... I know tough people, they're not smart, that's the worst, OK? That's the worst. You've got to be smart."

Trump added that McCarthy was a "nice guy."

Meanwhile, Carson said McCarthy was "unselfish" by prioritizing the Republican conference ahead of his own political ambitions.

"I say kudos to Rep. McCarthy for putting others before himself," Carson told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "This is not something we see very often in Washington."