McCarthy: What Trump criticism?
Donald Trump’s incitement of the Jan. 6 insurrection horrified even “a serial Trump brownnoser” like Rep. Kevin McCarthy, said Ed
Kilgore in New York magazine. The New York Times reported last week that after the MAGA mob smashed its way into the Capitol and sent members of Congress scurrying into hiding, the House minority leader fumed to fellow Republican leaders that “nobody can defend” Trump’s rhetoric and actions, and that he would advise him to resign immediately. “I’ve had it with this guy,” a disgusted McCarthy said. That was, of course, before McCarthy voted against conviction in Trump’s second impeachment trial and started stonewalling the House’s Jan. 6 investigation. When the Times report was published, McCarthy initially claimed his quotes were fabrications, said Charlie Sykes in The Bulwark. But “lordy, there were tapes,” and when MSNBC aired them, viewers heard McCarthy “saying exactly what he had just denied saying.”
Getting caught in such a bald-faced lie should end a politician’s career, said Jack Shafer in Politico. But not in the Trumpist Republican Party. McCarthy made a “proper grovel” to “Lord Trump” last week via phone, and the next day,
Trump claimed he had “a very good relationship” with McCarthy, who desperately hopes to be speaker if the GOP wins control of the House in the midterms. In fact, Trump said, “it was a big compliment” that McCarthy and fellow congressional Republicans “realized they were wrong and supported me.” Trump doesn’t really trust McCarthy, said Chris Stirewalt in The Dispatch, but probably wouldn’t mind a “supplicant, chastened” toady like McCarthy as House speaker.
Think about what this all reveals, said Greg Sargent in The Washington Post. On Jan. 6, McCarthy had a brief pang of conscience as Trump’s insurrectionists ransacked the magisterial halls of his workplace. Then he realized that, in the “through-the-looking-glass world of the Trumpified GOP,” he had transgressed by even thinking that the 45th president had gone too far. McCarthy then committed himself to “helping Trump obscure and bury” his offenses by stonewalling the House Jan. 6 committee’s investigation. Why does Trump see that as “a big compliment”? Because McCarthy and the GOP know that what Trump did to provoke a riot was wrong and perhaps criminal, but they remain loyal to him anyway, like “a mob boss.”