A pair of journalists who released a tape of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy telling GOP colleagues he would urge then-President Donald Trump to resign after the Capitol riot, conflicting with his denial of the episode, said they have more audio recordings of powerful people.
New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, who disclosed McCarthy’s private comments for their book This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future, teased what is to come during an interview Thursday night with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.
“This is only the start,” Martin said. “We have captured some of the most intimate and sensitive conversations in the extraordinary period following Jan. 6 on tape. There is much more to come between now and when the book is out on May 3.”
He expanded on that point when Maddow asked if the co-authors have more audio to share to back up another assertion in their reporting: that McCarthy told GOP leaders in the Jan. 10, 2021, conference call that wished the Big Tech companies would strip some Republican lawmakers of their social media accounts.
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“That’s correct, and we have a lot more on tape from this period, which is at the highest levels of American politics,” Martin said. “It is sensitive, it is delicate, and it’s high stakes. We have it all on tape, and it’s going to, I think, tell a very different story about this period than the story that many people are trying to tell right now.”
This Will Not Pass, which is set to be released on May 3, has quickly risen to the No.1 bestseller on Amazon in books. The description of the book said it will provide the “definitive” account of the 2020 election and the first year of the Biden presidency. The New York Times report adapted from the book also contains private comments from Sen. Mitch McConnell, the GOP leader in the upper chamber who in the days after the riot spoke favorably of impeachment. His office declined to comment on the report.
McCarthy denied the reporting that first appeared in the New York Times on Thursday morning, calling it “totally false and wrong.” The California Republican also criticized the reporters, claimed they used “politically motivated sources,” and he said, “It comes as no surprise that the corporate media is obsessed with doing everything it can to further a liberal agenda.”
However, the first tape to drop conflicts with McCarthy’s blanket denial. Maddow played an audio recording of McCarthy on Jan. 10, 2021, responding to Rep. Liz Cheney, who was chairwoman of the House Republican Conference at the time, asking if there was a chance Trump would step down.
“I’m seriously thinking of having that conversation with him tonight. I haven’t talked to him in a couple of days,” McCarthy said in the tape.
“The only discussion I would have with him is that I think this [impeachment resolution] will pass and it would be my recommendation you should resign,” McCarthy said. “That would be my take, but I don’t think he would take it. But I don’t know.”
McCarthy has yet to comment on the tape. Cheney, a Wisconsin Republican, denied she recorded or leaked it. Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the second-ranking House Republican, and Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the chairman of the party’s House campaign committee, were also on the call, according to the report. “Neither he nor anyone on his team recorded or leaked private conversations among members,” a representative for Scalise told Fox News.
In the days following the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, McCarthy joined other Republicans in publicly denouncing Trump for not doing more to quell the attack on the Capitol. But that position shifted shortly thereafter. McCarthy traveled to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida roughly a week after Trump left office on Jan. 20, after which they struck a deal to help Republicans win back the majority in the House. McCarthy is positioned to become House speaker next year with Republicans expected to retake control of the chamber, but there is growing dismay among some of the GOP rank and file.
The audio that was released shows the “staggering gulf between what Republican leaders say about Donald Trump in public and to his face and what they will say about him in private,” Burns said.
Another audio snippet was released on Friday, airing on CNN. In it, McCarthy is heard in a Jan. 11 House Republican Conference call claiming he told Trump that he bears responsibility for his words and actions as they related to the events of Jan. 6. Trump “told me he does have some responsibility for what happened,” McCarthy added. The substance of the call was reported by Politico that same day.
CNN just broadcast new audio of McCarthy unambiguously blaming Trump for the January 6 attack during a House Republican Conference call on January 11, 2021. In the audio, McCarthy also claims Trump acknowledged to him that he bears responsibility for January 6. pic.twitter.com/qH7vPdS1Qf
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 22, 2022
Rep. Matt Gaetz, who has floated Trump for House speaker, lashed out at McCarthy and accused Cheney of secretly recording the leaked conversation.
“While I was rallying in Wyoming against Liz Cheney … Kevin McCarthy was defending Liz Cheney among House Republicans … While Liz Cheney was secretly recording Kevin McCarthy for the New York Times. [McCarthy] — you should have trusted my instincts, not your own,” the Florida Republican tweeted.
Trump’s claims of a stolen election in 2020 have loomed large ever since. He left the White House under the shadow of a historic second impeachment. Ten Republicans joined Democrats in voting to impeach him on a charge of incitement of insurrection in connection to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Trump was acquitted by a then-GOP-controlled Senate.
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McCarthy rejected in January a request by the House committee investigating the Capitol riot for testimony about his conversations with Trump.
“And now it wants to interview me about public statements that have been shared with the world and private conversations not remotely related to the violence that unfolded at the Capitol. I have nothing else to add,” he said in part at the time.
