House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said that he is opposed to Democrats’ moves to impeach President Trump over the breach of the U.S. Capitol building and that he contacted President-elect Joe Biden.
“Impeaching the President with just 12 days left in his term will only divide our country more. I have reached out to President-elect Biden today and plan to speak to him about how we must work together to lower the temperature and unite the country to solve America’s challenges,” the top House Republican said in a statement on Friday.
The statement came as House Democrats are planning on how to move forward with an impeachment effort in the final days of Trump’s term. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that Congress “may be prepared to move forward with impeachment” if Vice President Mike Pence and Trump’s Cabinet members do not immediately move to use the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.
According to Punchbowl News, McCarthy and Trump got into a screaming match over the phone on Wednesday night as supporters of the president breached the U.S. Capitol building.
“Let me be very clear: the violence, destruction, and chaos that unfolded at the Capitol on Wednesday was unacceptable, undemocratic, and un-American. When I spoke to President Trump on Wednesday, I told him he had a great responsibility to intervene to quell the mob and start the healing process for our country,” McCarthy said the statement. “Over the coming weeks we will work with law enforcement to bring anyone responsible for the violence to justice.”
On Thursday, Biden called the police response to Wednesday’s breach “totally unacceptable,” saying that a group of Black Lives Matter protesters would have been treated “very differently” than Trump’s supporters.
A spokesman for Biden on Thursday said in a statement that Biden will “leave it to Vice President Pence, the Cabinet and the Congress to act as they see fit” when it comes to calls to remove Trump via the 25th Amendment.
