GOP whip Steve Scalise calls leaked McCarthy tape a distraction

Rep. Steve Scalise, the number two House Republican, denied leaking audio of Kevin McCarthy talking about Donald Trump after the Jan. 6th insurrection and called it a political distraction in an election year. 

Scalise, who would be frontrunner for speaker if Republicans win the House this fall and McCarthy’s bid flames out due to his comments on Trump, said neither he nor his staff was behind the leak audio, which revealed McCarthy did actually make comments about Trump’s responsibility for the insurrection – comments the GOP leader had denied making. 

‘Neither he nor anyone on his team recorded or leaked private conversations among members,’ a Scalise spokesperson said.

Scalise’s office pivoted the situation into an attack on President Joe Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, hitting out at their legislative agenda, which Republicans claim has led to the record high inflation being experienced by Americans. 

‘Millions of American are suffering right now under President Biden and Speaker Pelosi’s big-government socialist agenda that has given us record high inflation,’ Scalise’s office noted, ‘ith skyrocketing gas prices and a border crisis, yet the only thing the Democrat media continues to obsess over is January 6th. Whip Scalise’s sole focus is on working with his colleagues to stop the radical Democrat agenda.’ 

More tapes of McCarthy’s private conversations with House Republicans after the January 6th insurrection have been released as controvesy continues to surround the GOP leader.

In the latest batch of audio, which was played on CNN on Friday morning, McCarthy said what Trump did on the day of insurrection was ‘unacceptable’ and that no Republican should have to defend the then-president’s actions. 

‘I know this is not fun. I know this is not great. I know this is very tough, but what I want to do, especially  through here is, I don’t want to rush things. Want everybody to have all the information needed. I’ve had it with this guy. What he did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend that, and nobody should defend it,’ McCarthy said on a phone call with a small group of House Republicans on January 10th, 2021.

The next day, in a call with the larger GOP House Conference, McCarthy said Trump ‘bears responsiblities for his words and actions’ on January 6th. 

He also said Trump told him that ‘he does have some responsibility’ for what happened.

‘Let me be very clear to all of you, and I am very clear to the president. He bears responsibilities for his words and actions, no IFS, ands, or buts. I asked him personally today, does he hold responsibility for what happened? Does he feel bad about what happened? He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened. And he needed to acknowledge that,’ he said.

It remains to be seen how much the tapes damage McCarthy’s desire to be speaker if Republicans win control of the House in the midterm election, as they are favored to do.

Much of McCarthy’s fate is likely tied to Trump’s reaction. 

Trump and McCarthy spoke on Thursday night after the first round of audio tapes came out, The Washington Post reported. 

Those tapes were released by authors Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, who dropped a bombshell in the New York Times on Thursday from their new book ‘This Will Not Pass.’ 

Their report revealed that, in the wake of the MAGA supporters storming the Capitol, McCarthy said Trump should resign as president.

McCarthy denied saying it. The tapes, which were played on MSNBC, showed that he did.   

Trump was not upset about McCarthy’s remarks on the tapes and was glad the Republican leader didn’t follow through, which Trump saw as a sign of his continued grip on the Republican Party, sources told The Post of the two men’s conversation.

Their conversation was before the new audio was played on CNN on Friday morning in which McCarthy claimed Trump told him he bore some responsibility for the insurrection.

Martin told CNN that McCarth’s comments were ‘going to be news to President Trump, wherever he is today.’

The two authors have said they have more tapes in their possession.

Trump has yet to make a public statement on the matter. But some Republicans close to him have publicly criticized McCarthy since the audio was released. 

Steve Bannon, a former Trump White House adviser, said on his podcast on Friday of the McCarthy audio: ‘Right there you’re hearing all the money, all the leadership in the Republican Party, how they plot, in probably Trump’s weakest moment, when the whole world turned against him.’

And Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who is very close to Trump, tweeted on Friday morning: ‘While I was rallying in Wyoming against Liz Cheney… Kevin McCarthy was defending Liz Cheney among House Republicans… While Liz Cheney was secretly recording Kevin McCarthy for the New York Times. @GOPLeader – you should have trusted my instincts, not your own,’ he wrote. 

Cheney denied she leaked a tape of McCarthy’s conversations.  

‘The select committee has asked Kevin McCarthy to speak with us about these events but he has so far declined. Representative Cheney did not record or leak the tape and does not know how the reporters got it,’ a spokesperson for her said.

Martin and Burns were on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show on Thursday night to play tapes that backed up their reporting on McCarthy’s comments.

In the recording of a January 10 House Republican Leadership call, McCarthy is heard discussing the Democratic effort to remove Trump from office via  an impeachment resolution. He said he would tell Trump, ‘I think it will pass and it would be my recommendation he should resign.’

Earlier Thursday, McCarthy tore into Martin and Burn’s report. 

‘The New York Times’ reporting on me is totally false and wrong,’ the House Republican leader wrote in a statement tweeted out on Thursday with the caption ‘My statement on the New York Times’.

‘It comes as no surprise that the corporate media is obsessed with doing everything it can to further a liberal agenda,’ he continued. ‘This promotional book tour is no different.’

McCarthy lamented: ‘If the reporters were interested in the truth why would they ask for comment after the book was printed?’

Excerpts from Martin and Burns’ book This Will Not Pass by Jonathan Martin claimed that McCarthy and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell both said they thought Trump was responsible for the January 6 riot. 

‘I’ve had it with this guy,’ McCarthy told a group of Republican leaders, according to excerpts from the book detailed by the Times.

He also expressed interest in pushing Trump to resign, but the leader’s spokesman Mark Bednar denied this account, telling the Times: ‘McCarthy never said he’d call Trump to say he should resign.’

McCarthy says he never spoke with the authors before the book was printed. 

It’s set to be published May 3. 

McConnell, the Senate GOP leader, turned his attention to the Democrat-led impeachment against the then-president, according to the book.

‘The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a b***h for us,’ McConnell said January 11, 2021 during a lunch in Kentucky with two longtime advisers in reference to the imminent impeachment vote in the House.

Despite the report, McCarthy said in his statement Thursday that Trump was good for America.

‘The past year and a half have proven that our country was better off when President Trump was in the White House’ he wrote, ‘and rather than address the real issues facing Americans, the corporate media is more concerned with profiting from manufactured political intrigue from politically-motivated sources.’

‘Our country has suffered enough under failed one-party Democrat rule and no amount of media ignorance and bias will stop Americans from delivering a clear message this fall that it is time for change.’

The two top Republican leaders in Congress, mainly McCarthy, have publicly voiced support for Trump following the attack last January – as is further evident by the statement following the report indicating he spoke out against the former president. 

Within weeks of the January 6 riot, both Republicans backed off an all-out fight with Trump, fearing retribution from him and his supporters.

‘I didn’t get to be leader by voting with five people in the conference,’ McConnell told a friend when seeing there was not widespread support for Trump’s impeachment among Republicans.

The upcoming book draws on hundreds of interviews with lawmakers and officials and aims to recount the 2020 election and the first year of the Biden presidency while exposing the deep fissures within both parties ahead of the 2022 midterms.

Along with some public rebuke, but mostly a realignment with Trump, McCarthy told his GOP leadership team four days after the January 6 attack that he would speak with the president about the impeachment resolution.

He said that while it was very unlikely Trump would follow his recommendations, he would tell him: ‘I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation you should resign.’

Following the January 6 riot, Democrats moved swiftly to impeach the president for the second time – claiming his words and actions incited his supporters to descend on the Capitol.

The House passed the article of impeachment on January 13, 2021. 

The vote was 232–197, which included all 222 Democrats and 10 Republicans. 

Four Republicans did not vote at all and the remaining 197 Republicans voted against impeachment.

The Senate voted to acquit Trump on the impeachment charges. 

Later, McConnell tanked an effort to create a 9/11-style commission to probe the Capitol attack, so House Speaker Nancy Pelosi formed a House select committee to do the job. 

The nine-member panel includes just two Republicans – Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who both voted to impeach Trump. 

On Thursday night, Kinzinger had a field day with the revelation that McCarthy said he’d push Trump to resign on a private call. 

‘From a friend ‘But everyone agreed with you on Jan 7, 2021, then just debased themselves.’ Yep,’ the Illinois Republican tweeted late Thursday night, after the clip of Maddow aired. 

Kinzinger also pressed Republicans to be ‘done’ with the party’s current leadership.

‘Wow. McCarthy literally today said this was a lie and just a few hours later the tape with his voice from his mouth proves THAT was a lie. Incredible. @GOPLeader ought to be ashamed,’ Kinzinger wrote. ‘Republicans, your leaders think you are dumb. Let’s be done with them.’