House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) comments about wanting then-President Trump to resign after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on Capitol Hill are reverberating across Washington, with Democrats calling him a liar. and Republicans saying he is still well positioned to become Speaker after the midterms.
McCarthy dominated headlines this week after The New York Times reported that the California Republican, during a call with Republican leaders on January 10, 2021, said he would recommend that Trump resign from office.
McCarthy denied the report, calling it “totally false and incorrect.” But then the tapes rolled.
MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” aired audio Thursday, shared by the Times, that corroborated the report.
“The only discussion I would have with him is that I think this will happen, and it would be my recommendation that you resign,” McCarthy said on the recording.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) slammed McCarthy on Sunday, calling him a “liar and a traitor.”
“This is outrageous. And that’s really the disease that permeates the Republican leadership right now, that they say one thing to the American public and another in private,” Warren told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
McCarthy has also drawn criticism within the Republican Party. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who previously denounced the minority leader and Trump, wrote in Twitter that McCarthy should be “ashamed” of being caught in a lie.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a staunch Trump ally, attacked McCarthy amid drama unfolding at a cheep, accusing the Republican leader of endorsing Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyoming), one of the leading anti-Trump voices in the GOP. She was also heard on the call with McCarthy, although her office has denied that she leaked the tapes.
The controversy regarding McCarthy and the tapes comes as the GOP is expected to regain its majority in the House in November’s midterm elections, with McCarthy seen as the leading candidate for president for the final two years of the term of President Biden.
While some Republicans criticized McCarthy for his comments, other Republican lawmakers defended the House minority leader on Sunday.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said McCarthy is “in very good shape” to lead the conference. He also claimed on “Fox News Sunday” that McCarthy never discussed the resignation with Trump.
“You have to put it in the context of when it happened. This was literally just after January 6th. It was a very dark day. It was a very impressive day. Lots of emotions flying high,” McCaul said.
“What Kevin was doing was considering various options that, hey, if… what if he was impeached in the House and then convicted in the Senate? Would it be better for him to quit before then? But the fact is that he never had that conversation with President Trump.”
McCaul added that “the support at the conference is very strong for him” and predicted that “Kevin will be the next Speaker of the House.”
Asked Sunday how Americans can believe what McCarthy says after he lied about Trump’s comments, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said, “Well, a lot of people said a lot of things in those two weeks.” .
Blunt told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he hasn’t spoken to McCarthy about the matter, but said he was “a little surprised” that the Republican leader “even suggested [resignation] could be a realistic suggestion to make to President Trump.”
However, in 2022 and beyond, Blunt says the GOP and McCarthy are in good shape.
“I think a lot of things will happen between now and November. I think one thing that is likely to happen is that the Republicans will be in the majority. And if that happens, no one will have worked harder to make that happen than Congressman McCarthy,” Blunt said.
Another Republican who was undeterred by the comments was Trump himself. said the former president The Wall Street Journal that while he “didn’t like the call,” he likes McCarthy.
McCarthy said he spoke with Trump twice on Friday and the two had a “good conversation” about the recordings.
The recordings were obtained by Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns for their upcoming book “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future.”
The Hill has reached out to McCarthy for comment on Warren’s comments.
Reference-thehill.com