House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is drawing fire from Republican lawmakers after being caught in a lie about telling colleagues he considered calling on then-President Donald Trump to resign after the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
McCarthy, a California Republican in line to become House speaker if his party wins the majority in November, is also vulnerable to criticism that, as shown on the tapes, he would have liked to see social media companies ban certain conservative firebrands from their platforms. Social media companies have in recent months come under heavy criticism by House Republicans for alleged bias against conservatives.
On Thursday, McCarthy issued a statement denying a New York Times report that McCarthy was critical of Trump, which runs counter to the fealty the House minority leader usually shows to Trump publicly. The revelations come from the forthcoming book, This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future, by Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin. The authors appeared Thursday on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show and played an audio recording of McCarthy on Jan. 10, 2021, discussing impeachment scenarios with Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, at the time the third-ranking in House Republican leadership.
Senior Republican lawmakers and staff said that the latest controversy could upend the relationship that he’s worked to repair with Trump since his public rebuke following the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. It also sows distrust with the far-right faction of the conference whose votes he’ll need to secure the speaker’s gavel.
“The bigger issue than the Trump stuff is the stone-cold lying. It’s hard for Kevin to ask us to believe him over our own ears,” one conservative lawmaker told the Washington Examiner. “It seems the NYT is going to blood-bait the speakership race with these recordings. There will be more. And the sharks will circle.”
MCCARTHY DENIES BOOK AUTHORS’ REPORTING ON TRUMP CRITICISMS FOLLOWING JAN. 6
The member added that McCarthy’s fundraising for members could help him survive the controversy he’s currently enmeshed in.
“I think very little of Kevin’s support in the caucus is reliant on his veracity,” they said. “People who support Kevin because he buys their votes with political money won’t care if he lies about the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. They just want to fill out the deposit slips.”
McCarthy’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
Multiple GOP sources who requested anonymity noted this is not the first time McCarthy has faced backlash after audio emerged of him privately criticizing Trump. They point to a reported 2016 incident amid headlines of coziness between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump, along with then-Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican.
“There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy was quoted as saying at the time.
One wild card in the current situation is a reaction by Trump as the midterm elections approach.
“How does McCarthy recover from this with Trump? Now Trump knows without a shadow of a doubt that McCarthy lied straight to his face,” one senior Republican aide said.
One House Republican, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, on Friday was openly critical of McCarthy. Noting the seeming chumminess between the House minority leader and Cheney, who in January 2021 was a member of the Republican leadership but was ousted months later for her persistent criticism of Trump.
“While I was rallying in Wyoming against Liz Cheney,” Gaetz tweeted on Friday. “Kevin McCarthy was defending Liz Cheney among House Republicans … While Liz Cheney was secretly recording Kevin McCarthy for the New York Times. @GOPLeader — you should have trusted my instincts, not your own.”
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While lawmakers said that Trump’s reaction will likely have a significant impact on McCarthy’s trajectory, they noted McCarthy’s comments weren’t recent and the change in climate could provide the California Republican with some leeway with the House Republican Conference.
“It will be interesting to see how Trump handles this. but it was a conversation from Jan. 10, not yesterday. So, I’m not sure how much it changes things now,” another member said.
“Most of us will give him some grace because those days were chaotic. I prefer to see Kevin more independent from Trump anyway. I want us to be the party of Lincoln and Reagan, not Trump,” another lawmaker added.
And one senior GOP lawmaker asserted they believe that tensions will ease by the time the speaker’s race comes around. McCarthy would run for speaker after the Nov. 8 elections if, as expected, Republicans win the majority. Republicans need to net five seats in the 435-member chamber to reclaim the majority the party lost to House Democrats in 2018.
