Firebrand Rep. Matt Gaetz lashed out against House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday, criticizing the House Republican leader for voicing concerns that the freshman lawmaker would incite violence in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot.
McCarthy’s comments on conference calls that some rank-and-file lawmakers, particularly Gaetz and Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama, posed security risks to the Capitol complex was “the behavior of weak men“ because McCarthy never approached them with these concerns, Gaetz said.
“Rep. McCarthy and Rep. [Steve] Scalise held views about President Trump and me that they shared on sniveling calls with Liz Cheney, not us,” Gaetz said in a statement Tuesday. “This is the behavior of weak men, not leaders. Folks know what I think because I tell them clearly, directly, as I did when I held the largest event in Wyoming political history (without a rodeo element) days after these recordings were taken.”
MCCARTHY FRETTED OVER GOP COLLEAGUES INCITING MORE VIOLENCE AFTER JAN. 6, AUDIO REVEALS
McCarthy identified Gaetz by name as someone who raised concerns because he aided then-President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and disrupt the transfer of power on Jan. 6, 2021, according to audio recordings obtained by the New York Times. He also expressed his desire to rein in some Republican hard-liners, suggesting he would tell the lawmakers to stop posting “incendiary” comments on social media.
However, McCarthy stopped short of punishing those who were accused of inciting violence.
“While I was protecting President Trump from impeachment, they were protecting Liz Cheney from criticism,” Gaetz said in response. “They deemed it incendiary or illegal to call Cheney and Kinzinger ‘anti-Trump,’ a label both proudly advertise today.”
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The audio was collected for This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future, which is set for publication on May 3. The authors, New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, have also detailed conversations with GOP leadership in which McCarthy said he would tell Trump to resign days after the riot.
McCarthy denied the report as written, calling it “totally false and wrong,” but then audio released on MSNBC revealed him telling GOP colleagues on Jan. 10 that he would urge Trump to resign. However, he denied on Friday that he ever asked Trump to resign. He spoke with the former president after the audio was released, and Trump then announced their relationship remains intact.
