House GOP Leader McCarthy Wanted Trump to Resign after Capitol Riot, Leaked Audio Reveals
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House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy considered asking then-President Trump to resign after the January 6 Capitol riot, according to new leaked audio obtained by the New York Times.
New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns released the audio on Thursday evening, hours after they first detailed McCarthy’s comments in an excerpt from their book, This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future, that was published in the Times.
After the article was published, but before the audio was released, McCarthy denied the report as “totally false and wrong.”
The recording was taken during a House Republican leadership meeting on January 10, 2021. In the recording, Representative Liz Cheney (R., Wyo.), who was the chairwoman of the Republican conference at the time, is heard asking McCarthy if there is any chance Trump would resign.
“My gut tells me no,” McCarthy responded, according to the audio. “I am seriously thinking about having that conversation with him tonight.”
“The only discussion I would have with him is I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation that he should resign,” McCarthy says, referring to the impeachment resolution in the House. “That would be my take, but I don’t think he would take it. But I don’t know.”
Before the audio’s release on Thursday, McCarthy issued a statement disputing Burns and Martin’s reporting.
“The New York Times reporting on me is totally false and wrong. It comes as no surprise that the corporate media is obsessed with doing everything it can to further a liberal agenda,” McCarthy said. “This promotional book tour is no different. If the reporters were interested in truth why would they ask for comment after the book was printed?”
The New York Times also reported that McCarthy told his colleagues, “I’ve had it with this guy,” though that comment was not captured in the audio.
The report alleges that McCarthy also called Trump’s behavior the day of the Capitol riot “atrocious and totally wrong.”
“What he did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend that and nobody should defend it,” he said, according to the report.
A spokesperson for Cheney told CNN that the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot “has asked Kevin McCarthy to speak with us about these events but he has so far declined. Representative Cheney did not record or leak the tape and does not know how the reporters got it.”
Cheney and Representative Adam Kinzinger (R., Ill.) are the only Republicans on the House select committee.
Kinzinger reacted to the audio on Thursday evening saying it showed that Republican leaders thought their voters were “dumb.”
“Wow,” Kinzinger tweeted. “McCarthy literally today said this was a lie and just a few hours later the tape with his voice from his mouth proves THAT was a lie. Incredible. @GOPLeader ought to be ashamed. Republicans, your leaders think you are dumb. Let’s be done with them.”
Kinzinger later tweeted a photo of McCarthy with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in January 2021.
“McCarthy was over Trump until he wasn’t, when he realized he needed him,” Kinzinger captioned the photo.
