A staunch ally of France and the United Kingdom and a steadfast adversary of the Iron Guard movement in Romania, Călinescu also supported King Carol II's move to counter the Iron Guard's success; he first confronted the PNȚ leadership during the elections of 1937, after it signed an electoral agreement with the Iron Guard. Eventually, he defied his party by becoming Minister of the Interior after December of that year, in the short-lived Octavian Goga cabinet formed by the National Christians, being immediately expelled from the PNȚ.