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Trump, McCarthy Speak After Audio Leak, Former President Not Angry

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


Former President Donald Trump has reportedly heard the audio of what Republican House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy said about him and his response was not what many expected.

The former president was said to not be furious, as many assumed he would be, with the minority leader after revelations that McCarthy talked negatively about him in private after the January 6, 2021 incident at the Capitol, The Washington Post reported.

McCarthy phoned Trump on Thursday night to discuss the revelations on the audio recordings and, according to three people with knowledge of the conversation, the former president assured him that everything was good between them.

In fact, The Post said, the sources said that Trump was “glad McCarthy didn’t follow through” with asking him to resign.

McCarthy spoke about the revelations on the audio recordings on Friday night.

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“I’ve never asked the president to resign,” he said to reporters.

“I’ve never asked the president to resign, and I never thought he should resign. What I was asked on a phone call was about the process, the 25th amendment, if someone is impeached. We walked through ‘ifs, ands or buts.’ It was never in the process to ask President Trump to resign and especially after we learned Nancy Pelosi denied the national guard to be there to protect us all,” he said.

Thursday morning, The New York Times reported that the House GOP leader had considered calling on Trump to resign which led to McCarthy’s office issuing a blanket denial. But then, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow played an audio recording Thursday evening which led to doubts about the veracity of the California Republican’s claim.

“My gut tells me no,” McCarthy reportedly said during a private call with other GOP members in response to Rep. Liz Cheney’s (R-Wyoming) question about whether Trump would resign, according to audio aired on MSNBC. “I am seriously thinking about having that conversation with him tonight. I haven’t talked to him in a couple of days. From what I know of him, I mean you guys all know him, too, do you think he’d ever back away?

“We know it’ll pass the House, I think there’s a chance it’ll pass the Senate even when he’s gone. And I think there are a lot of different ramifications for that. … The only discussion I would have with him is I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation that he should resign,” McCarthy added in reference to an impeachment referral.

“That would be my take, but I don’t think he would take it,” McCarthy said. “But I don’t know.”

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The Times added:

In the days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol building, the two top Republicans in Congress, Representative Kevin McCarthy and Senator Mitch McConnell told associates they believed President Trump was responsible for inciting the deadly riot and vowed to drive him from politics.

Mr. McCarthy went so far as to say he would push Mr. Trump to resign immediately: “I’ve had it with this guy,” he told a group of Republican leaders, according to an audio recording of the conversation obtained by The New York Times.

Before the audio recording was released by Maddow, a spokesperson for McCarthy’s office told the Times: “McCarthy never said he’d call Trump to say he should resign.” In addition, McCarthy released a statement as well calling the Times’ report “totally false and wrong.”

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“It comes as no surprise that the corporate media is obsessed with doing everything it can to further a liberal agenda,” McCarthy said. “This promotional book tour is no different. If the reporters were interested in truth why would they ask for comment after the book was printed?”

“The past year and a half have proven that our country was better off when President Trump was in the White House 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,” he continued. “Our country has suffered enough under failed one-party Democrat rule and on amount of media ignorance and bias will stop Americans from delivering a clear message this fall that it is time for change.”

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