McCarthy audio on riot revealed

GOP leader said Trump acknowledged ‘some responsibility’

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told GOP lawmakers in the days after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that former President Donald Trump acknowledged that he bore “some responsibility” for what happened that day, new audio revealed.

The audio obtained by The New York Times that emerged Friday is part of a series of new revelations about Republican leaders’ private condemnations of Trump in the days after his supporters stormed the Capitol as part of an effort to stop the certification of electoral votes for Joe Biden.

“Let me be very clear to all of you and I have been very clear to the president. He bears responsibilities for his words and actions,” McCarthy said on the call, which took place Jan. 11. “No if, ands or buts.

“I asked him personally today, does he hold responsibility for what happened?” McCarthy said. “Does he feel bad about what happened? He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened and he’d need to acknowledge that.”

McCarthy’s assertion is at odds with the former president’s refusal to accept responsibility for the deadly attack. It illustrates the divide between the private, derisive tone Republican leaders use about the former president and their public flattery of the de facto leader of their party.

Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

McCarthy was asked in a news conference earlier this year about the call with House Republicans after the attack.

He sidestepped the question: “I’m not sure what call you’re talking about.”

The New York Times on Thursday reported that McCarthy told Republicans he planned to urge Trump to resign. The reporting is based on the upcoming book “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future.”

McCarthy disputed that reporting, but in an audio clip obtained by the Times of a different phone call with Republican lawmakers, McCarthy said he would tell Trump of the impeachment resolution: “I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation you should resign.”

In that phone call, on Jan. 10, 2021, McCarthy was critical of Trump.

“I’ve had it with this guy,” McCarthy said in another audio clip obtained by the Times. “What he did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend that, and nobody should defend it.”

The Times has reviewed the full recording of the conversation, which runs just over an hour.

Trump has long sought to deflect criticism that he incited the violence Jan. 6, including earlier this month when he told The Washington Post that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Muriel Bowser, mayor of Washington, were to blame for failing to secure the Capitol.

In that interview, Trump disclosed that he had wanted to march to the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“Secret Service said I couldn’t go,” Trump said. “I would have gone there in a minute.”