A week after armed supporters of Donald Trump stormed the Capitol, (click here) Kevin McCarthy laid blame for the deadly insurrection at the feet of his party’s leader. “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters,” he said in a floor speech. “He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.” The scolding was ultimately meaningless, considering the House Minority Leader—who’d promoted the president’s election fraud claims—still voted against certifying the election and later against Trump’s impeachment. But it seemed to reflect a fear, on the part of McCarthy and other GOP leaders, that the party could bear a political cost for the attack if it didn’t at least pay a little lip service to contrition.
But the bill never came due, and now, four months later, McCarthy and other Trump allies are seeking to rewrite the history of January 6 instead of taking responsibility for it. In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, McCarthy was repeatedly pressed by Chris Wallace about Trump’s reaction to the violence. Had he, as Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler claimed, begged Trump by phone that day to call his supporters off, only for Trump to shrug that “these people are more upset about the election than you are?” McCarthy wouldn’t say. But as he tied himself in knots trying to dodge Wallace’s questions, he offered this account of how Trump responded to the Capitol attack:
“I was the first person to contact him when the riots were going on. He didn’t see it,” McCarthy said. “What he ended the call with saying, telling me he’ll put something out to make sure to stop this, and that’s what he did. He put a video out later.”
