Kevin McCarthy once again caught contemplating doing the right thing before finally doing nothing like the coward that he is

Last Thursday, The New York Times reported that after the attack on Capitol Hill, the top Republican representatives in the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy told colleagues that donald trumpThe actions of January 6 were “heinous and completely wrong”, and that he was going to suggest the resignation of the then president. That obviously didn’t happen, and within weeks McCarthy was back to kissing Trump’s ring and lying about the insurrection to make the guy who incited it look better. But McCarthy was still furious that reporters alexander burns Y Jonathan Martin she denounced him for temporarily considering doing the right thing, lashing out with an angry statement: “The New York Times reports on me are totally untrue and wrong. It’s no wonder the corporate media is obsessed with doing everything they can to promote a liberal agenda.” That blew up in the Republican leader’s face just hours later when audio surfaced of him doing exactly what he Times he said he did. And now, for the second time in less than a week, the Times has provided yet more evidence that McCarthy momentarily had a conscience for a few days in January 2021, before apparently deciding that doing the right thing would neither be politically popular with his party, nor help his chances of one day being Speaker of the House.

After the attack on Capitol Hill, McCarthy was deeply—and reasonably!—concerned that numerous far-right congressmen would provoke violence against fellow lawmakers, angering the base with arson attacks on their colleagues for not supporting Trump’s attempted coup, among other things. For example, in the January 10 phone call just detailed by the Times, McCarthy referred to the representatives matt gaetz Y mo brooks by name, saying they posed a threat to the safety of other representatives with their reckless tweets and inflammatory comments. (At the rally that preceded the uprising, Brooks told Trump supporters to “start taking down names and kicking ass,” while Gaetz appeared on television after 6/1 to attack several Republicans who had criticized Trump.) Trump for inciting the riot that left five people dead.) “He’s putting people in danger,” McCarthy said of Gaetz, noting that he was going to talk to the Florida congressman about attacking colleagues by name. “And he doesn’t need to be doing this. We saw what people would do on Capitol Hill, you know, and these people came prepared with rope, with everything else.” Representative steve scalise, who was on the call, suggested that what Gaetz was doing was “potentially illegal.” McCarthy suggested that he was going to tell other troublesome lawmakers to fuck off, and during the call he discussed offensive or dangerous comments by representatives. Lauren Boebert, Barry Moore, Y Louie Gohmert. According to reports, he also “inquired about [Marjorie Taylor] Green and if he had addressed the January 6 rally.”

“Our members also have to start paying attention to what they say, and that cannot be tolerated,” McCarthy said, adding that the country “is too crazy. I don’t want to look back and think that we caused something or that we missed something and someone got hurt. I don’t want to play politics with any of that.”

Of course, like his initial desire to rid the party of Trump, McCarthy, according to the Times, “He quickly lost his will to stand up to the far right, including lawmakers most directly involved in sparking the January 6 riots.” Despite talk of stripping Brooks of his committee assignments during the January 10 call and a subsequent push to do so by the influential Republican steering committee, McCarthy ultimately did nothing to punish the Alabama congressman ( just as he refused to discipline Greene for violent death threats). against the Democrats, among other comments, or Paul Gossar for posting an animated video showing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezmurder). If anything, McCarthy’s obvious desire to become Speaker of the House if Republicans retake the House has led him to spend “much of the past year forging a closer political association with the far right, showing little public concern that their more extreme colleagues may instigate bloodshed with their overheated or hateful rhetoric,” Burns and Martin note.

On Tuesday night, Gaetz released a statement about the latest report, saying, “Rep. McCarthy and Representative Scalise had opinions about President Trump and me that they shared in tearful calls with Liz Cheney, not us. This is the behavior of weak men, not leaders…. While I was protecting President Trump from impeachment, they were protecting Liz Cheney from criticism.” Gaetz did not add that, in the end, McCarthy voted against impeach Trump, or that he helped oust Cheney from the leadership of the Republican Party.

McCarthy did not respond to the Times‘ request for comment, but is presumably working with his communications team on a statement accusing the newspaper of further lies despite, again, recorded evidence to the contrary. Nobody accuses this guy of thinking about doing the right thing before he reassesses how it’s going to affect his career and does absolutely shit, you hear?

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