President Trump dropped by a meeting Thursday with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), one day after a report that that lawmaker privately accused Trump of being on Russia’s payroll.

Trump and Vice President Pence made an unscheduled appearance at a meeting of White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s innovation initiative.

McCarthy was participating in the Roosevelt Room meeting with other GOP lawmakers and operatives, according to a photo posted by Trump’s social media director, Dan Scavino.

The California congressman is known to be close to Trump, but during the 2016 campaign he reportedly disparaged him during a closed-door conversation with his colleagues.

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“There’s two people I think [Russian President Vladimir] Putin pays: [California Republican Dana] Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy said, according to The Washington Post.

McCarthy on Wednesday dismissed the remark as a joke.

“If you listen to it, everybody laughs,” he told reporters at the Capitol. “So you know that it’s a bad attempt at a joke, and that’s all there is to it.”

“No one believes it to be true,” McCarthy added, noting he has “100 percent” confidence in Trump.