Listen to Kevin McCarthy say he will tell Trump to resign after Jan. 6 Capitol riot, contradicting new denial

published 22 April 2022

Six days after the Jan. 6, 2021, siege of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told a handful of House GOP colleagues "I've had it with this guy," meaning Trump, and he planned to call Trump and urge him to resign in the face of likely impeachment, according excerpts released Thursday from a new book by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns.

A spokesman for McCarthy told the Times that the GOP House leader "never said he'd call Trump to say he should resign," and McCarthy said in a statement the Times' reporting is "totally false and wrong."

But the phone conversation in which McCarthy said those things was recorded, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow revealed Thursday night, and Martin and Burns "have shared that audio of this call with us so that we can share it with you tonight, so that you can know that when Kevin McCarthy denies that this happened, he is not telling the truth."

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"The audio threatens to badly damage the relationship between McCarthy and Trump, who remains the most popular figure in the Republican Party, despite his role in inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection and his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election," The Associated Press reports. "And it could threaten McCarthy's standing with House Republicans aligned with Trump, whose support he will need for votes to become House speaker next year."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.