Audio reveals Rep. Kevin McCarthy planned to ask Trump to resign after Jan. 6
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was captured on audio telling fellow Republicans that he planned to tell former President Trump to resign in the days after the Jan. 6. attack on the Capitol.
The bombshell tape emerged just hours after the House Minority Leader derided as “totally false” a published account about the same discussion.
“It would be my recommendation you should resign,” McCarthy says on the tape. “I mean, that would be my take, but I don’t think he would take it. But I don’t know.”
The tape aired late Thursday on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show.
Based on the audio, McCarthy openly discusses the effort to remove Trump from office with the House GOP leadership.
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
There is no evidence that McCarthy ever actually carried through with his threat to confront Trump.
McCarthy called Trump after the story broke and the former president was “not upset,“ according to the Washington Post, citing two sources.
After the first report of the statement emerged Thursday, McCarthy released a statement calling it “totally false,” although he stopped short of explicitly denying making the statement.
His spokesman, Mark Bednar, falsely claimed: “McCarthy never said he’d call Trump to say he should resign.”
In the audio, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), a staunch critic of Trump, also asked McCarthy about a potential move in invoking the 25th Amendment to oust Trump or whether he might resign if such a push gained steam.
“My gut tells me no. I’m seriously thinking of having that conversation with him tonight,” McCarthy replied. “What I think I’m gonna do is I’m gonna call him.”
The report and audio could threaten McCarthy’s standing with pro-Trump lawmakers whose votes McCarthy would need to fulfill his goal of becoming Speaker of the House if Republicans retake the House in the midterm elections.
McCarthy briefly sought to distance himself from Trump after the violent attack calling it “un-American” and saying in a speech that Trump “bears responsibility” for inciting it.
But he soon started cozying up to Trump and visited the former president’s home at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.
The report was adapted from an upcoming book, This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future,” by New York Times’ reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns.
