House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy seemingly told fellow GOP lawmakers shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021 riot that he would urge then-President Donald Trump to resign, according to audio posted by The New York Times and aired on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show.
McCarthy has denied the recording. The Horn News has transcribed the audio, so readers can decide for themselves.
In the 95-second-long clip of a Jan. 10 House Republican Leadership call posted by the Times Thursday night, McCarthy is heard discussing the Democratic effort to remove Trump from office and saying he would tell Trump, “I think it will pass and it would be my recommendation he should resign.”
It’s unclear whether McCarthy, who is in line to become House speaker if Republicans gain control during the fall midterm elections, followed through on his thinking or was merely spit-balling ideas shared privately with his colleagues in the aftermath of Jan. 6.
In the same conversation, McCarthy told his colleagues he doubted Trump would take the advice to step aside.
“That would be my recommendation,” McCarthy is heard saying in response to question from Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a House Republican who would emerge as a staunch Trump critic.
“I don’t think he will take it, but I don’t know,” McCarthy continued.
Earlier Thursday, after the Times published its initial story describing the conversation, McCarthy released a statement calling it “totally false and wrong.” His spokesman, Mark Bednar, had told the paper, “McCarthy never said he’d call Trump to say he should resign.”
In his statement, McCarthy slammed the Times as “corporate media” and accused the paper of failing to ask for comment before printing the book.
He also accused the Times of “profiting from manufactured political intrigue.”
After all, the Times reporters stand to gain financially from the report. The Times article was adapted from the reporters’ upcoming book, This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future, by Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns.
Read McCarthy’s statement here —
My statement on the New York Times pic.twitter.com/PWi2WkoWzh
— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) April 21, 2022
Bednar did not immediately respond to questions late Thursday night after the audio’s release. Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the tape.
Take a look at the reporters’ segment on The Rachel Maddow Show —
BREAKING: GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy wanted Twitter to suspend the accounts of other Republican members of Congress, according to reporting by Jonathan Martin @jmartNYT and Alex Burns @alexburnsNYT pic.twitter.com/jwAoMAqYCn
— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) April 22, 2022
The audio threatens to badly damage the relationship between McCarthy and the former president, who remains a popular figure among Republicans. It could threaten McCarthy’s standing with House Republicans aligned with Trump, whose support he will need for votes to become House speaker next year.
McCarthy ran for House speaker in 2015, but he angered some Republican voters saying on Hannity that the Benghazi hearings were politically motivated.
The audio depicts a very different McCarthy than the one who has been leading House Republicans over the last year and a half and who has remained allied with Trump even after delivering a speech on the House floor shortly after Jan. 6, during which he called the attack on the Capitol “un-American.” At the time, McCarthy called the assault among the saddest days of his career and told his fellow Republicans that Trump “bears responsibility” for the violence.
Even after the violence, though, McCarthy joined half of the House Republicans in voting to challenge Joe Biden’s election victory.
Since then, the California Republican has distanced himself from any criticism of Trump and has avoided directly linking him to the Capitol riot. Within weeks of Jan. 6, McCarthy said he did not think Trump provoked the attack, as other prominent Republicans said at the time.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., voted to acquit Trump the following month, but he also called the former president “practically and morally responsible” for the riot.
Instead, McCarthy has cozied up to Trump, visiting him at the former president’s Florida residence at Mar-a-Lago as he relies on the former president’s brand for campaign support this fall.
McCarthy indicated during an interview with The Associated Press this week in California that Trump will motivate voters to turn out for the party in this fall’s midterm elections.
“He’ll motivate, get a lot of people out,” McCarthy said at a GOP event in Fresno.
Cheney — who eventually lost her No. 3 leadership position after serving on the committee to investigate Jan. 6 — can be heard in the audio asking McCarthy about a 25th Amendment resolution calling for Trump’s ouster and whether Trump might resign.
McCarthy, 57, has been strategically charting his own delicate course as he positions himself to try to take over as speaker if Republicans retake the House. He has begun to build out his leadership team and last summer tasked several groups of Republican lawmakers with drafting proposals on the party’s core legislative priorities in hopes of making a fast start in 2023.
But even as he inches closer to leading the chamber, McCarthy is well aware of the downside of power in recent months as some members of the conference have created headaches for him with their inflammatory actions and statements.
There was little immediate reaction Thursday night from fellow Republicans who could determine his future.
To be sure, no other Republican leader in the House has yet amassed the standing to challenge McCarthy for the leadership position.
McCarthy has recruited the class of newcomers bolstering GOP ranks and raised millions to bolster Republican campaigns. He has drawn his closest rivals into the fold even as he works to shore up the votes that would be needed to become speaker.
An outside group aligned with McCarthy has led fundraising ahead of the midterm elections, and rank-and-file Republicans working to regain the House majority are unlikely to be critical of the leader ahead of November.
Still, McCarthy has also been a person of interest for the House committee investigating the storming of the Capitol on Jan 6. The select committee, which Cheney vice-chairs, requested an interview with McCarthy in mid-January, hoping to learn more about his conversations with Trump “before, during and after” the riot.
They had also sought information about McCarthy’s communications with former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in the days before the attack. Hours after the request was made, McCarthy issued a statement saying he would refuse to cooperate because he saw the investigation as not legitimate and accused the panel of “abuse of power.”
The committee has been especially focused on McCarthy’s communications with Trump and White House staff in the week after the violence, including a conversation with Trump that was reportedly heated.
Without his cooperation, it remains unclear whether the panel will be able to gain testimony from McCarthy or any other congressional allies of Trump. While the committee has considered subpoenaing fellow lawmakers, they have so far avoided doing so as it would be an extraordinary move and could run up against legal and political challenges.
Read our transcript of the leaked audio here and decide for yourself —
McCARTHY: Liz, you on the phone?
CHENEY: Yeah, I’m, here. Thanks, Kevin. I guess there’s a question. When we were talking about the 25th Amendment resolution, and you’re asking what happens if it gets here after he’s gone. Is there any chance you’re hearing that he might resign? Is there any reason to think that might happen?
McCARTHY: I’ve had some few discussions. My gut tells me no. I’m seriously thinking of having that conversation with him tonight. I haven’t talked to him in a couple days. From what I know of him — I mean, you guys all know him, too. Do you think he’d ever back away? But what I think I’m going to do is, I’m going to call him. My — This is what I think. We know it’ll pass the House. I think there’s a chance it’ll pass the Senate, even though he’s gone. And I think there’s a lot of different ramifications for that. Now I haven’t had a discussion with him that, if he did resign, would that happen? Now this is one personal fear I have. I do not want to get into any conversation about him pardoning. I mean, the only discussion I will have with him is, I think this will pass. And it would be my recommendation he should resign. I mean, that would be my take. But I don’t think he would take it. But I don’t know.
The Horn editorial team and The Associated Press contributed to this article.