Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) had a heated exchange with former President Donald Trump during the Jan. 6 Capitol attack as the then-House majority leader reportedly became increasingly frustrated with the former president as he tried to downplay the events of the riot.
“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump said to McCarthy in a phone call just before 3 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021, according to the forthcoming book Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind by Robert Draper.
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“More upset?” McCarthy yelled back, he recalled to a Republican colleague hours later. “They’re trying to f***ing kill me!”
The previously unreported details of the conversation offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse into what was going on inside the Capitol during the hourslong attack as Trump supporters sought to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election.
The phone call between McCarthy and Trump has long been reported on after details about the conversation were leaked in the days following the Jan. 6 attack. Shortly after the initial leak, Trump was reportedly furious with McCarthy, prompting the California Republican to scold Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) for going public about the call, according to another book, Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump.
“After all the work I have done for the Republican Party, the money I have raised!” McCarthy said to Herrera Beutler, according to authors Rachael Bade and Karoun Demirjian. “After all the work I have done for you! … I alone am taking all the heat to protect people from Trump! I alone am holding the party together! I have been working with Trump to keep him from going after Republicans like you and blowing up the party and destroying all our work! … You should have come to me! Why did you go to the press? This is no way to thank me!”
Herrera Beutler had reportedly learned of the phone call between McCarthy and Trump after she sought advice from the California Republican on how to vote during the former president’s second impeachment trial, the authors wrote. During that meeting, McCarthy recalled the phone conversation, knowing it would likely prompt Herrera Beutler to vote yes to impeachment.
Herrera Beutler later went public about the phone call, telling McCarthy, “What did you want me to do? Lie? I did what I thought was right!” according to the book.
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Both McCarthy and Herrera Beutler have rejected those details in a joint statement to the Washington Post, calling it “dramatized to fit an on-screen adaptation, not to serve as a document of record.” However, Bade and Demirjian have defended their reporting, citing sources who they say were in the room during the argument and whom McCarthy had told about the meeting.
Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind and Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump are both scheduled to be released on Oct. 18.
