Representative Kevin McCarthy said the Republican party had "a lot of room for growth"

Representative Kevin McCarthy, a close ally of President Trump, said Thursday that he had not been questioned to replace General John Kelly as chief of staff of the White House, and that he was concentrated on his new role as the minority House leader at the next convention.

"No, I did not interview for this job," said McCathy, who currently holds the position of majority leader in the House, in an interview for "CBS This Morning". "I have a job for which I have just been elected."

"My job is to recover that majority, and I'm focusing on that," he said.

McCarthy, a Republican from California, has cultivated a relationship with Mr. Trump. He would have even asked a helper to choose a pink and red Starburst to offer the President a gift earlier this year, after finding that Trump only ate those flavors. Mr. Trump calls him "My Kevin," and the name McCarthy is sometimes mentioned as a potential replacement if the president were to replace his chief of staff.

House Republicans voted widely on Wednesday to nominate McCarthy as the next Congress leader, earning a victory over a challenge by Representative Jim Jordan, a prominent member of the Freedom Caucus. In recent weeks, McCarthy has taken a harder line on issues such as immigration; Last month, he proposed a bill to fully fund the construction of a border wall between the United States and Mexico, a promising and exciting project for President Trump.

But McCarthy told "CBS This Morning" that he was concentrating on broadening the Republican party's call, not on maintaining conservative positions. "We have plenty of room to grow," he said.

Asked if Mr. Trump's combative style had hurt his party in the mid-term elections, where Democrats took control of the HouseMcCarthy said he was focusing on moving from modern campaign mode to political mode.

"The tone matters a lot where we go," he says. However, he did not criticize Mr. Trump's style, saying that the president had accumulated bipartite achievements, including work on sentence reform. "There are areas for improvement and places where he has done very well," he said.