WASHINGTON (AP) – Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had a “positive” conversation with Donald Trump and appears to be suffering a bit of political shock on Friday from the release of an audio recording in which he suggested the president should resign a little. after January 6, 2021. Capitol Uprising.
McCarthy is working quickly to boost support among Republicans by calling and texting many lawmakers about his conversation with Trump as he rushes to control the consequences.
In an audio recording first published Thursday by The New York Times and broadcast on Rachel Madow’s MSNBC show, McCarthy is heard discussing with Republicans in the House of Representatives Democrats’ efforts to remove Trump from office after supporters of the president stormed the Capitol .
In a January 10, 2021, recording of a discussion, McCarthy said he would tell Trump, “I think it will pass, and my recommendation is to resign.”
McCarthy issued a statement Thursday calling the report “completely untrue and wrong.” His spokesman Mark Bednar told the newspaper: “McCarthy never said he would call Trump to say he had to resign.
But on Friday, the Times released another recording, this time in a Republican conference call on January 11, 2021. The audio recorded McCarthy telling his caucus that he had asked the former president if he felt responsible for the deadly riot and that Trump had admitted some responsibility. .
“I asked him personally today, is he responsible for what happened?” McCarthy said in the recording. “Does he feel bad about what happened?” He told me that he had some responsibility for what had happened and that he had to admit it.
The release of the audio recording could jeopardize the retention of power of the leader of the Republican Chamber. McCarthy is on track to become a spokesman if Republicans win election control in the fall, and he is counting heavily on Trump’s support to get there. But a man familiar with McCarthy’s conversation with Trump on Thursday described it as “positive.”
“I’m not mad at you,” Trump told McCarthy in a conversation Thursday afternoon, according to another person familiar with the conversation. Both were given anonymity to discuss the call. McCarthy and his office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Trump’s call.
Trump and McCarthy had strained relations immediately after the Capitol attack, but improved their alliance after the Republican leader flew to the former president’s resort in Florida to smooth over differences.
The Times report on Thursday was adapted from the forthcoming book “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for the Future of America” by reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns.
There is no indication that McCarthy actually told Trump that he should resign. In the same conversation, McCarthy told his colleagues that he doubted that Trump would accept the advice to step down instead of being pushed.
“That would be my recommendation,” McCarthy was heard saying in response to a question from Liz Cheney’s R-Wyo, who will emerge as a staunch critic of Trump. “I don’t think he’ll take it, but I don’t know.”
The mob attacking the Capitol marched there from a rally near the White House, where Trump begged them to fight for the annulment of the election result. However, he categorically denied responsibility for the violence.
Trump remains the most popular figure in the Republican Party, despite his role in inciting the January 6 uprising and refusing to accept the results of the 2020 election.
McCarthy said in an interview with the Associated Press this week in California how important Trump remains for his party and its prospects of gaining control of the House this fall. “He will motivate, he will bring out a lot of people,” McCarthy said at a GOP event in Fresno.
Asked about McCarthy’s situation on Friday, President Joe Biden said: “This is not your father’s Republican Party.
Biden suggested that Trump’s grip on the Republican Party was strong. “Now it’s a MAGA party,” he told reporters, referring to Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again.”
Audio depicts a very different McCarthy from the one who led Republicans in the House of Representatives for the past year and a half, and who remained an ally of Trump even after giving a speech in the hall shortly after Jan. 6, during which he called for an attack on the Capitol. . At the time, McCarthy called the attack one of the saddest days of his career and told fellow Republicans that Trump was “responsible” for the violence.
However, even after the violence, McCarthy joined half of the Republicans in the House of Representatives to challenge Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
Since then, the California Republican has distanced himself from any criticism of Trump and has avoided directly linking him to what happened. In the weeks since the siege of the Capitol, McCarthy said he did not think Trump provoked the attack, as other prominent Republicans said at the time.
Instead, McCarthy calmed down with Trump while visiting the former president at his Florida residence in Mar-a-Lago.
McCarthy, 57, is strategically outlining his own delicate course to the speaker’s hammer, well aware of the support he will need from hard-to-right members who have created headaches with arousing actions and statements.
No other Republican leader in the House of Representatives has amassed a position to challenge McCarthy for leadership. McCarthy has recruited a newcomer class to strengthen the Republican Party and raised millions to support Republican campaigns. He has tried to reassure his closest rivals, Louisiana’s Steve Scaliz and Ohio’s Jim Jordan, even as he works to support the voices needed to become a speaker.
As long as Trump continues to support McCarthy, whom he once affectionately called “My Kevin,” the Californian’s job is to lose.
Several Republican lawmakers came into force on Friday to defend McCarthy and reiterate that his path to oratory is still on track.
Representative Tony Gonzalez, R-Texas, tweeted that in a few months, Republicans would regain a majority and “and Kevin McCarthy will be president of the House.”
In a Fox Business show, Nancy Mace of South Carolina said she supported McCarthy “100%.”
However, McCarthy was also of interest to the House of Representatives committee investigating the January 6 storming of the Capitol. Cheney’s vice-elected committee asked for an interview with McCarthy in mid-January, seeking information about his communications with Trump and White House officials in the week after the violence, including a conversation with Trump that reportedly heated up.
At the time, McCarthy issued a statement saying he would refuse to cooperate because he believed the investigation was illegitimate and accused the group of “abuse of power”.
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Associated Press authors Mary Clare Jalonik and Chris Megherian contributed to this report.
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