We now have clarity about what was really discussed in that surreptitiously recorded phone conversation among members of the Republican House leadership four days after the Capitol siege of Jan. 6, 2021.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was merely explaining to Rep. Liz Cheney, then No. 3 in the GOP’s leadership hierarchy, the nuances of the 25th Amendment, which covers a president’s disqualification. Sort of a civics refresher for them all, it sounds like. Nothing serious, like developing a coordinated response to an unprecedented attack on U.S. democracy enthusiastically witnessed, if not authorized, by President Donald Trump, one of their own.
“I got asked a question,” McCarthy said Friday of that Jan. 10, 2021, conversation with Cheney, Minority Whip Steve Scalise and other House Republicans. “They asked a question, (relevant to) the time period, about the 25th Amendment. All I did was walk through, like anybody would, what are the different scenarios that would happen? And all we did was put out the different options.”
Options such as asking Trump to resign. Which McCarthy says he never did. More on that in a minute.
McCarthy’s impromptu news conference with a group of mostly local reporters Friday in the eastern Kern County city of Ridgecrest, where he had just handed out awards to outstanding high school students, represented his first face-to-face meeting with media since audio of his leaked call was aired on MSNBC.
McCarthy’s comments in that 2021 phone conversation were included in excerpts from a forthcoming book by two New York Times reporters. Following McCarthy’s indignant rejection of their authenticity (“manufactured political intrigue from politically-motivated sources,” he said at one point) — Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, the authors of “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future,” released an audio recording of the conversation, confirming the story’s accuracy.
Trump was initially outraged by the tone and direction of the conversation among House leaders in that call 16 months ago, but he said he has since made amends with McCarthy, and the congressman told reporters he spoke to Trump twice on Friday.
As for whether McCarthy actually asked Trump to step down:
“What they said we did, we never did,” McCarthy said Friday in Ridgecrest. “I never asked President Trump to resign. ... What the book said was not true.”
Thing is, the released portions of the soon-to-come book do not make that claim. No one is saying McCarthy beseeched Trump in that way, only that he suggested to colleagues he would do so.
“I’m seriously thinking of having that conversation with him tonight. What I think I’m gonna do is, I’m gonna call him,” McCarthy says in the taped conversation. “... It would be my recommendation he should resign. I mean, that would be my take.”
Asking the president to resign vs. telling colleagues he, as House Republican leader, will ask the president to resign. A fine line? Perhaps, but one McCarthy has decided to hang his hat on. That, and the overall state of the country as seen through the eyes of the opposition party.
“We watch inflation like we've never seen before, a border that's not secure, streets that are unsafe,” McCarthy said. “... This is really what America's most focused upon. ... And I think that ... President Trump's going to help us win the majority back.”
Which is why all this parsing of language matters. Any Republican with any ambition knows, because of his enduring popularity with GOP voters, all paths go through Trump. You challenge him at your own peril, as Cheney — betting on history over political expediency — has learned. Virtually everyone else who has crossed the former president has paid a price, Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, being one of the few exceptions. With a House take-back within his grasp but far from assured, McCarthy needs every seat he can get — even that of Valadao, the Trump-world infidel who voted to impeach. Trump has gone after all of the Republicans who voted that way — all but Valadao, spared the former president’s full wrath because his district is so blue.
As for Jan. 6, McCarthy was interested in pursuing only one line of discussion: That Speaker Nancy Pelosi allegedly blocked the National Guard from coming to the Capitol during the insurrection. He mentioned it no fewer than five times in the eight-minute interview.
“If the speaker had not declined that National Guard (help), this never would have happened,” McCarthy said at one point. Except there is no evidence Pelosi gave any such advance order, according to multiple fact-checking organizations. "It was not until the 6th that I alerted (National Guard) leadership that we might be making a request (for assistance)," then-House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving said in sworn testimony before a Senate panel last year.
Culpable or not, Pelosi is certain to be liberated of her duties as speaker this fall, McCarthy said.
“I believe we're gonna win the majority,” McCarthy said, “and Nancy Pelosi is going to hand me that gavel.”
Robert Price is a journalist for KGET-TV. His column appears here on Sundays; the views expressed are his own. Reach him at robertprice@kget.com or via Twitter: @stubblebuzz.
