Republican Kevin McCarthy says he walks ‘tightest
tightrope’ because of Trump
House minority leader sheds light on refusal to answer
question about conversation with ex-president during Capitol attack
Martin
Pengelly
@MartinPengelly
Mon 26 Apr
2021 12.49 BST
The House
minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, has said his job involves walking “the
tightest tightrope anyone has to walk” – shedding light on his very public
refusal to answer a question about a conversation with Donald Trump during the
Capitol attack.
Appearing
on Fox News Sunday, the Republican dodged twice when asked whether during the
deadly riot on 6 January, when he asked the former president to call off
supporters told to “fight like hell” to overturn the election, Trump said: “Well,
Kevin, I guess these people were more upset about the election than you are.”
The
question concerned Trump’s refusal to act but McCarthy’s refusal to answer was
widely noted – and mentioned in a profile in the New York Times.
“He could
change the whole course of history,” McCarthy told the paper, discussing
Trump’s sway on the party. “This is the tightest tightrope anyone has to walk.”
Critics say
McCarthy is not walking it elegantly, given his support for Trump’s lie that
his defeat by Joe Biden was caused by electoral fraud. Speaking to the Times,
McCarthy said Trump “goes up and down with his anger. He’s mad at everybody one
day. He’s mad at me one day.”
According
to Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Republican, Trump was dismissive of McCarthy during
their 6 January call, during a riot which left five dead, saw rioters seek to
kill Mike Pence, the then vice-president, and resulted in a second impeachment.
McCarthy
reportedly responded: “Who the fuck do you think you are talking to?”
The Times
quoted a friend saying at the time McCarthy was “depressed in this job” and
“just really down”. But McCarthy recovered, flying to Mar-a-Lago to make nice
soon after Trump left power.
McCarthy
defended his own votes against certifying election results in Arizona and
Pennsylvania, saying if those states had been overturned, Biden would still
have been president.
“That was
the only time that we could raise the issue that there was a question in the
activities in those states,” he said.
Republicans
in Arizona are now conducting an audit of election results which critics say
undermines faith in democracy.
Asked by
the Times about controversial Republicans such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, the
far-right Georgia representative stripped of committee assignments for
conspiracy laced comments including saying the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, should be
killed, McCarthy said: “Look, I work with people I don’t get to hire.”
He also
said he had not spoken to Biden since inauguration day, and reportedly showed
pictures of the two men together when the Democrat was vice-president.
The Times
described the scene in McCarthy’s office in the Capitol when the mob broke in,
saying a friend, the Arkansas Republican Bruce Westerman, was left there alone,
choosing a civil war sword to defend himself.
“Friends,”
the paper said, “describe the post-election period as traumatic for Mr McCarthy,
who publicly perpetuated the fiction that Mr Trump had won while privately
asking him to stop.”
The paper
also said that “whenever the former president’s name came up in these
interviews, Mr McCarthy would lower his voice and speak haltingly, wary of not
casting Mr Trump in a way that might upset him.
“‘Is this
story going to be all about Trump?’ Mr McCarthy asked, after back-to-back
questions on him. He then paused, seemingly bracing for a ceiling fan to drop
on his head.”
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