'They're trying to f***ing kill me': McCarthy made desperate plea to Trump on Jan. 6, new book reveals

During the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy spoke by phone with then-President Donald Trump, urging him to tell the angry mob of his supporters to go home.

“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump said to McCarthy, according to an upcoming book by Robert Draper, “Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind," excerpts of which were published by Politico on Tuesday.

“More upset?” McCarthy yelled back. “THEY'RE TRYING TO F***ING KILL ME!”

While their phone call had been widely reported, the new book reveals McCarthy’s side of the expletive-laden exchange.

A few days later, in a separate phone call, Trump claimed that the people who had assaulted police and stormed the Capitol were left-wing protesters. McCarthy forcefully rejected this and told Trump they were his supporters.

“They were in my office. They left zip ties,” McCarthy told a California newspaper. “I saw them as they broke my window.

“The president said there was some Antifa there. I said, ‘No, the people arrested, they’re MAGA,’” McCarthy said, referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

In a speech on the House floor on Jan. 13, 2021, a week after the insurrection, McCarthy said that “the president bears responsibility” for the attack.

“He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding,” McCarthy said, calling on Trump to “accept his share of responsibility.”

“What we saw last week was not the American way. Neither is the continued rhetoric that Joe Biden is not the legitimate president,” he said, adding that Biden “won the election.”

McCarthy’s comments were later echoed by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said that “the mob was fed lies.”

“They were provoked by the president and other powerful people,” McConnell said on the Senate floor on the last full day of Trump’s presidency.

But McCarthy changed his tune a day later, saying he did not believe Trump provoked the attack on the Capitol.

The California Republican later flew to Mar-a-Lago to meet face to face with the former president, posing with Trump in an infamous photo op inside his Florida home.

At that meeting, Trump agreed to work with McCarthy to support GOP candidates in the 2022 midterm elections.