Media Hoax: No, Kevin McCarthy Did Not Say Trump Should Resign Over J6
McCarthy says he would recommend to Trump that he resign rather than face the humiliation of his Cabinet and Congress deeming him unfit to serve and removing him without his consent.
There they go again. The left and NeverTrump infotainment propagandists are busily twisting and spinning their claims that then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy wanted President Trump to resign after J6. The implication being that he was so personally mortified by the “insurrection” (that wasn’t) that he personally wanted the president to resign as a traitor. Or something.
However, and completely unsurprisingly, if you listen to the audio they are touting as “evidence,” you can clearly tell that he is discussing a particular circumstance: Democrats and NeverTrump Republicans pursuing removal of Trump from office via the 25th Amendment.
Listen:
Recording of McCarthy and Cheney pic.twitter.com/oHMMV7TXbo
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 22, 2022
McCarthy is talking about a specific situation that many believed at the time would arise—and that did arise, that the anti-Trump “resistance” would move on a 25th Amendment resolution in the House. And that it would pass with just enough spineless America Last NeverTrumpers in the GOP casting their lot with Nancy Pelosi.
In that case, and only in that case according to the “gotcha” audio that’s been leaked so far, McCarthy says he would recommend to Trump that he resign rather than face the humiliation of his Cabinet and Congress deeming him unfit to serve and removing him without his consent. In what world is that bad advice? Sure, it may not be the advice I or you would give, but it is certainly reasonable. It’s also worth noting that McCarthy is very clear to Liz Let’s Find a Country to Bomb Cheney that he does not believe Trump would take his advice.
Here are some screenshots of the conversation, including transcript:
There’s no word yet on whether or not that proposed conversation between President Trump and minority leader McCarthy ever took place, but if it did, it probably went just as he said. Hey, Mr. President, it looks like the 25th Amendment resolution will pass at least the Pelosi-run House, that’s bad. It may be best if you resign rather than go down in history as removed from office for being “unable to discharge the powers and duties” of office. No? Oh, okay, I thought not.
What is also notable about this released/leaked audio is what we don’t hear. We don’t hear McCarthy conspiring with Cheney to remove Trump from office; we don’t hear him state that he personally believes Trump is unfit or that he would support the 25th Amendment resolution they are discussing; we don’t hear him state that he would be upset or angry if Trump refused his advice to resign in the face of 25th Amendment removal; and we don’t hear what he’d “do” if Trump refused his advice.
In other words, this is a great big nothingburger. We already knew that McCarthy, like many in GOP leadership, was (too) quick to condemn President Trump in the hours and days immediately following J6, and we also know that he, like many in GOP leadership, very quickly changed his tune. We also know that President Trump was gracious enough to forgive him his emotional outburst and accept his apology.
We further know that it was McCarthy who backed the removal of Cheney from House leadership mere months after this phone call was recorded (apparently without McCarthy’s consent or knowledge).
The anti-Trump left (and right) had been floating the 25th Amendment against President Trump since his very first year in office, and they did not stop until their “well-funded cabal of powerful people” succeeded in their goal to install Joe “I am the Democratic Party” Biden in the Oval office.
Here are some of our posts going back to 2017:
- August, 2017: 25th Amendment attacks on Trump are “HOOEY” say Howard Dean and Jonathan Turley
- September, 2018: New York Times: Rosenstein Offered to Tape Trump, Discuss Invoking 25th Amendment With Cabinet Members
- February, 2019: Andrew McCabe: DOJ considered how to remove Trump under 25th Amendment after Comey firing
- Alan Dershowitz: Yes, Using the 25th Amendment to Oust Trump is an Attempted Coup
- October, 2020: Nancy Pelosi Flirts With Invoking 25th Amendment, Speculation Immediately Jumps to Preparation to Install Kamala Harris, Should Biden Win
- January 6, 2021: CBS News: Cabinet Members Discussing 25th Amendment To Remove Trump
- [January 10, 2021: Leaked Cheney/McCarthy phone call took place]
- January 12, 2021: VP Mike Pence Rejects Pelosi Demand To Invoke 25th Amendment To Remove Trump
J6 wasn’t that long ago, and we all remember the hysteria and overreaction that took place, that the left and NeverTrumpers desperately try to keep alive to this day, and yes, it did look as if President Trump might be in trouble during those early days. But this timeline suggests that the moment was short-lived and that sanity quickly prevailed . . . at least in terms of invoking the 25th Amendment.
The Pelosi-led House did pass the 25th Amendment resolution on January 12, 2021, two days after this phone call took place. Cheney voted for it; McCarthy voted against it. Indeed, House Republicans blocked the unanimous resolution House Democrats were seeking in their uphill bid to oust President Trump via the 25th.
President Trump did go on to be impeached a second time, and notably, we also know that McCarthy voted against that measure.
And now we know that Liz Cheney was a key player trying to whip up enthusiasm and support on the Republican side to pursue first the invocation of the 25th and then the second clown show impeachment. That’s probably the main takeaway from this “bombshell” audio leak. Oh, and we know she denies that the leak came from her office. For whatever that’s worth.
For his part, McCarthy is calling out the clear (to my mind) misrepresentation of this conversation.
My statement on the New York Times pic.twitter.com/PWi2WkoWzh
— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) April 21, 2022
I’m kind of agnostic about McCarthy, but he’s getting a bad deal here. Unless there is more to drop, it doesn’t sound like he did anything more than say he would offer advice to the president based on his informed sense that a measure to remove Trump from office via the 25th was likely to pass at least the House, as indeed it did.
I’m not even sure that would be bad advice from the House minority leader given the stigma attached to the 25th and the historical implications of such a removal. It never came to that, but in those days immediately following J6, it was not some wild, out of this world proposition . . . as it had been every other time the Democrats and NeverTrumpers tossed it out there.
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Comments
To be blunt – bullshit.
If that’s what he meant, then why did McCarthy flatly denied he said it, before being humiliated by the leaked audio?
What it shows is that McCarthy was yet another spineless RINO who, instead of putting up the SLIGHTEST bit of fight and challenging the insane ‘insurrection’ bullshit that the left was putting, was completely ready to throw Trump overboard.
I hope McCarthy enjoys his karma. Apparently Cheney is the one that leaked this. After McCarthy put up with her bullshit and actively campaigned to keep her in LEADERSHIP barely a year ago, she’s gone fully off the reservation.
McCarthy and McConnell both need to go, their time is long past.
McCarthy denied saying he wanted Trump to resign BECAUSE OF J6, and that is actually proven and supported by the audio. His concern was more political and historical than anything else, and we can quibble about that all day long, but what the leftstream lying media is implying is simply untrue. It is designed to piss off Trump supporters. You get that, right? Listen to the audio, what is McCarthy really saying? What is he NOT saying? Do not be a leftists’ useful idiot pawn in this or in anything. There may be a million things to hate McCarthy over, but this is definitely not one of them (at least as I see it, ymmv).
Fuzzy
Fair enough. As usual the legacy media over hyped and under performed in attempting to carry water for the d/prog. It’s an obvious attempt to stir the pot and divide the r coalition. In this instance McCarthy isn’t guilty of what the media proclaimed. Of course that doesn’t transform him into a MAGA populist on the important issues.
OMG, of course not, Chief. I don’t honestly care about McCarthy one way or the other, but I can see a raw deal a mile away and chafe at it. He’s being smeared and lied about . . . on this point. It’s worth noting for many reasons, not the least of which is the interest of truth. The truth may not change anyone’s mind, but for goodness’ sake, when did we all start gobbling up #FakeNews as “real” as soon as it fit OUR narrative? Some circumspection may be in order for all of us.
Remember when Pelosi pulled Jim Banks and Jim Jordan off of the 6 Jan panel because…. Republican? McCarthy called Pelosi’s move “an egregious abuse of power” and pulled ALL of his five picks from the panel, announcing that Republicans will conduct their own separate investigation into the Capitol attack.
So how’s that separate investigation going McCarthy?
Because 6 Jan certainly needs investigating. The real planners, instigators, enablers, participation by fed agencies, 6th Amendment violations, the works.
McCarthy did exactly the right thing here, @GoSport. Obviously, as minority leader he has no control over committees and what they investigate or not; the Speaker (now it’s Pelosi) has that power. He can’t conduct or require any investigations at all until the GOP retakes control of the House (assuming he’s elected Speaker). So it’s really unfair to bash him for not doing something he literally has no power to do in his present position.
My last post (@ 0442) wasn’t meant to be in response to Fuzzy, it was meant to be at the end of the thread. Fat fingers on my part it seems.
Sorry, but this confirms my suspicion that McCarthy is just another RINO who crept his way up the ladder, gaining political capital, but never standing tall on any issue that really counts. ANYONE discussing 25th A with Cheney, who had her knife out for Trump because he told the truth about her daddy, is suspect in my eyes. Cheney becoming Pelosi’s pet RINO makes McCarthy discussing something this extreme with her even more telling. The entire 25th Amendment deal was ginned up by the MSLSD/CNN/Bulwark/Never Trump crowd. It never deserved serious consideration, yet here we have McCarthy saying he would try to talk Trump into it. DT had 10 days left in his term. WTF would, or should, he have resigned? He had a right to be pissed, because no matter what the National Review crowd still claims, there were major election irregularities nationwide, which becomes more and more evident with each passing day. I personally wouldn’t trust McCarthy being 2 heart beats away from the Presidency, with Biden being a mental train wreck and Kackala Harris unable to complete an intelligible English sentence.
If you don’t care about McCarthy one way or another,why are you so compelled to help him when he gets in a jam? Let him stew in his own excrement! Same with McConnell who was aiding and abetting the Uniparty (remember them?) effort to impeach and convict Trump! We are fighting the Uniparty which includes these squishy Republicans!
These Republican/Uniparty traitors are already focusing entirely on maintaining their role in The Great Uniparty Kabuki, everything we have been fighting against for 3o years already. We are so close to getting them out. Why don’t you focus on THAT! Who cares if McCarthy is getting a raw deal here. He is one of THE orchestrators of bad deals against us!
If we don’t get the upper hand on the McConnells and McCarthys Uniparty squishes BEFORE the election, we will have returned to the days when the Republicans used their majorities to do NOTHING! Crushing these commie collaborators on our way to winning in November IS the most important objective. Stop helping them! You sound like Milhouse making endless pedantic arguments then defending yourself on a moral argument of fairness or being right on a minor point.
Do you want to win or don’t you? Stop defending the main operators of the Republican half of the Uniparty! Destroy the U-N-I-P-A-R-T-Y! Why is that so hard to understand?
Well, President Trump has come out in support of McCarthy over this leaked audio. Is he the Uniparty now? Does he want to win or doesn’t he? Have you sent this screed to him?
“You sound like Milhouse…”
Man, that’s a low blow.
Bwahaha! I didn’t take it that way, though, Phil’s good people, and he was just trying to make his point as strongly as possible. I don’t agree with him on this issue, but I get where he was coming from.
If we take the House and Senate in 2022, and McConnell and McCarthy are installed as respective heads, we might as well have lost.
Enough with these backstabbing, corrupt hacks!!!!!!!
https://frankspeech.com/tv/video/biden-announces-additional-13-billion-ukraines-defense
WHY the heck is McConnell spending MILLIONS to help Cheney when she is a backstabber?? I don’t trust ANY of them.
What the heck are you talking about? McConnell is not spending any millions for Cheney. He made a personal donation, amount unknown, but by law it can’t have been more than a few thousand, and may have been much less. And he’s publicly staying out of the fight, not raising money for her.
In any case the topic here is McCarthy, who is fully supporting and fundraising for Hageman.
No, he’s spending millions for Murkowski. Vichy Mitchy is UniParty. Period.
If McCarthy could, he should immediately give back MTG her committee assignments that were stripped from her. This would quell the storm brewing over his leaked comments.
i bet he never takes another call from Cheney after being recorded..
Well, this recording was taken on January 10th, 2021, and he orchestrated her ouster from GOP leadership in May of the same year. My guess is that he’s not in regular contact with her at all.
Cheney sees McCarthy as a threat, an enemy, someone to be destroyed. (Thus the leaked audio). Me? I see a guy leading a minority House and trying to find the best way forward. I think he did just fine. He voted properly in the 25th Amendment resolution and in the second impeachment vote, both of which took place after this phone call.
Here’s a shiny new idea, instead of bashing the GOP (for, incidentally, doing the right thing here), let’s see what we can find lacking in the Dems. It’s hard, I know, but there simply MUST be something about their policies we can all find repellent.
Bashing stupid d/prog policies is far too low a bar to set. That’s enough to get in the door to the party. To stay requires actually working to achieve the legislative rollback those policies in favor of r/populist/tea party/MAGA policies. The days where it was enough to talk about how x policy is great and good but somehow never gets passed with r majorities in the HoR and Senate with a r in the WH are done. The base won’t accept anything less than legitimate effort to pass the platform.
If that results in the legacy media saying mean things about us or not inviting us to DC social events so much the better. In fact if our r politicians were doing it right they wouldn’t worry too much about either of those because they would expect that result.
Chief, we can clean our own house until it’s shiny and new. Then what? While we’ve been shining up the pots and pans, the left has been eviscerating on every institutional front, on every economic and tech front, and pretty much everywhere else. They did that by being bold not by taking a broom to the front stoop for the fifth time that day.
We haz a clean stoop; they own our stoop, our broom, and our dust. All of which they are redistributing around the globe. Meanwhile, we stare at our stoop and use our finger to remove that last RINO smear . . . before we are sent to the Gulag or whatever “red/blue” reeducation camp Hillary proposed in 2016.
Hey, we whisper to our enslaved compatriots, aren’t you glad we stood firm on that whole challenge to AOC in the Bronx! We almost had ’em, only 60 points away! Hey, is that my cockroach? I got dibs on that one!
Yeah, sign me up to stupid GOP gulags. So fun!
Losing a r primary election after refusing to legitimately work towards achieving campaign promises is hardly a gulag. Public service in HoR or Senate is not a personal or perpetual right of an incumbent.
Tell you what, in Jan 2025 with a r HoR and Senate and a r POTUS can we at least agree that all these r office holders who campaigned on: Border wall/mandatory e verify/ interior enforcement v illegal aliens and their employers should be held to a standard of doing everything possible to pass those items? Just those items. Nothing else.
Of course that means leadership doing everything possible to wrangle votes not waving their hands and saying better luck next time. Remove committee assignments for reluctant members. Threaten and deliver on funding a primary opponent for reluctant members. Every single thing, fair or unfair, polite or provocative to get the legislation passed and signed. Reassign their office space. Use rewards and punishment to line up the votes to get it passed.
If, after all that, they come up short then ok. That’s what a legitimate effort to get our agenda passed looks like, but if McConnell and McCarthy having done all that come up short I think we can grant a pass based on the willingness to expend every round in their arsenal and make permanent enemies in trying to get it done. All else are excuses.
Orchestrated her ouster? Are you JOKING?
That’s a funny way of saying ‘actively fought to keep her in leadership by beating enough RINOs down to keep her in leadership over the objections of a large portion of his party, before she finally became so toxic that he was forced to remove her or get tossed along with her mere months later’.
Cheney doesn’t see McCarthy as a threat. She just knows that she’s finished in Congress, and sees this as her ticket to be the pet ‘conservative’ commenter for one of the liberal alphabets.
McCarthy’s ‘leadership’ has been pathetic. An actual leader would be out there detailing exactly what he planned to do with the Democrat insanity poised to give him a huge majority. Instead, he’s saying as little as possible and making as few promises as possible so that he can get right back to the good ole days of ‘reaching across the aisle’ and getting his kickbacks.
Maybe you recall certain facts differently that I do. I linked to posts on the topic, feel free to ignore them as you see fit.
Let’s ask a basic question: Could Liz Cheney have been ousted from her leadership position (#3) if McCarthy did not both approve her ouster and lead the charge. He got rid of her. It could not have happened without his sanction (he’s the freaking House Minority leader; what do you imagine happened there? He dozed off and the entire thing changes without his knowledge? Someone came in with cookies and distracted him?). McCarthy saw the divisive, destructive writing on the wall and wanted Liz Let’s Bomb More Impoverished People Cheney gone. And, as if by magic, his dream came true. Except is wasn’t magic, of course. And it wasn’t an accident. That leaves only a few options, right? Which do you honestly believe?
“I think he did just fine…..”
Fuzzy, how could you think that? The guy lost his nerve and displayed his mliquetoast character. He’s the modern Lloyd Fredendall.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Fredendall#:~:text=Cheyenne%2C%20Wyoming%2C%20U.S.&text=San%20Diego%2C%20California%2C%20U.S.&text=Lieutenant%20General%20Lloyd%20Ralston%20Fredendall,served%20during%20World%20War%20II.
Enough with these hacks!!
Too Bad McConnell doesn’t feel the same way.
You present such a simple task as if it might be a challenge.😊
My challenge for over a year has been to find something about their policies that is not repugnant. Obama was right, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to (expletive) things up.”
If the Rs win a majority in the House a little over 6 months from now, they should have the sense not to make McCarthy Speaker. Meanwhile, any so-called Republican who freaked, even temporarily, over January 6, should change parties or get permanently out of politics.
We already had one Boehner. We saw how that worked out.
This will be an unpopular opinion but
1. Nobody thinks Trump led an insurrection, caused an insurrection, or that there was an insurrection
2. They do however think Trump was reckless in his rhetoric, wrong in claiming voter fraud in public but not to a judge, and that his rhetoric got a crowd so angry they rioted and they don’t like it.
3. Proving Democrats are lying about Jan 6th doesn’t change what most people actually think of it
4. Fortunately Jan 6th is not an issue for well anyone outside of Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and other Democrats/their allies. It is a small negative for our side but luckily the narrative is not in vogue with the American people so it isn’t going to hurt us much.
5. Just ask people if they know who the House minority leader is without giving any indication of his name if you think anyone even knew about this alleged conversation.
I would say I am glad the claims about the conversation have been proven to be a lie but that is what I always thought.
The arrest of pro-life activists for revealing infanticide is a much bigger issue than this one.
So you believe Joe won the election fair and square and did not steal it?
Yes, he does.
Ok I will answer for the trillionth time if it is still unclear.
Yes the election was rigged because it was done under severe censorship, with political violence/extortion from one side. There was also unfair politicking by supposedly neutral institutions.
Was there voter fraud flipping elections either congressional or statewide? Nope. Not even close not only is there no evidence for it there is tons of evidence against it. The only thing pretending massive fraud happened does is keep Republicans home (Remember the Jan 5th Georgia Senate elections when Democrats took the senate?) and ironically it stops solving the censorship question to.
Joe Biden won fair and square to the extent it is possible for the beneficiary of censorship and political violence to win fair and square.
Since Jan 5th we have won almost every election including some major upsets like Virginia that simply wouldn’t be possible if this mythical voter fraud cabal existed.
For more see Andrew Klavan or Ben Shapiro.
Furthermore the same voter fraud claims were made by the left in 2016 and I highly doubt you found it outrageous that Trump became president. Trump 2016 margins in WI, MI and PA wasn’t better than Biden’s in 2020
And for the trillionth time, you’re wrong. It is perfectly clear that there was massive electoral fraud in addition to the violence, extortion, censorship, and other factors that I call “non-electoral fraud”.
Trumpists are wrong when they claim that this could have been proven to the legal standard required to reverse the result, within the time available to do that. They make this error largely because they imagine the fraud was centered in one or a few easily-discovered sources, such as Dominion. But that’s not how it has ever worked, and it’s not how it worked in 2020. The fraud that year was on a much bigger scale than in any previous election, but it was of the same kind that the Democrat Party has traditionally engaged in, which means it was widely distributed and very difficult to detect.
Your claim that there was no significant fraud is impossible to accept, for a simple reason. Surely you do not deny that the Democrats have systematically engaged in fraud for decades. And in 2020 they deliberately changed the rules to make fraud much much easier than it had ever been before. What kind of fool could believe that they went to all that effort and never took advantage of it?!
Was all this fraud enough to have changed the result, in the presidential election or in the senate? I say that’s impossible to know. The Trumpists are sure it did, you are sure it didn’t, but I say you’re both speculating. I think there’s good reason to think it did flip Georgia, and it’s reasonable to suppose it may have flipped a few other states, but nobody knows for sure, and nobody will ever know unless the next administration launches an official investigation, with generous funding and enforceable subpoena power, and even then it might find the evidence has been destroyed.
Yet it is 2022, and there is still no evidence for it, there have been a lot of deep pockets searching for the evidence but it is still exactly what Dems had in 2016 when making identical arguments. Democrats have lost in blue strongholds like Kenosha Wisconsin, a statewide Virginia race that swept Glenn Youngkin into office where he is doing great work, they have lost all over South Texas (a location that was the capital of 20th century voter fraud by the way) they have lost special elections all over the country.
It isn’t just that the evidence isn’t there the evidence is against it. Trump lost ground in the suburbs in every state. The same loss of suburban support he faced in MI and WI he had in Hawaii and Alabama.
Use of mail in ballots makes voting easier as well as voter fraud. It makes it easy for less informed and less motivated voters to vote for example. It makes low turnout elections a lot less likely. There also is something to be said for college students being less likely to vote which Dems have always wanted to do something about.
Democrats have always believed Republicans are more motivated to vote and have always pushed for that kind of thing (see for example Colorado).
Oh Danny,
We have been here before
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” to start with.
There is clearly enough evidence ( meeting the threshold of PROBABLE CAUSE) to trigger official investigations to uncover the actual crimes.
Its those “investigations” that are being obstructed/stopped.
Those are historical facts shorn up by tons of evidence.
Your “read” ( for lack of a better term) is biased and not objective at best and a Politico Troll rant at worst.
Go back to your handlers and tell them you lost again.
That simply isn’t true.
Trump lost suburban support in the following states
1. South Carolina
2. Hawaii
3. Alabama
4. Oregon
5. Arkansas
6. New York
His loss of suburban support in swing states is perfectly consistent with his loss of suburban support in red and blue states.
You are free to keep shouting at Republicans to never vote (there is no other way to pretend elections are rigged. It is a voters obligation to boycott a rigged process because that denies it legitimacy) and keep pinning for the glory days of handing the senate to Chuck Schumer on Jan 5th, I will keep supporting victories like Kenosha Wisconsin and the State of Virginia.
When one thinks about that reasonably and objectively- to believe Biden won it legitimately is the ultimate height of human detachment from all reality.
For that to be true- here is what must also be true.
It was even said by the media Trump got more votes than any other President ( even Obama)- for Biden to get over that hurdle means a basement dweller who couldn’t fill crowds anywhere all of a sudden got more votes than Obama? ( that’s 2 people both getting more votes than Obama)
Then, that doesn’t explain that “coincidence” in key states (only)- all the lights went out with Trump leading significantly then all of a sudden ALL VOTES came to Biden (a statistical impossibility)
Personally, I don’t believe Biden stole anything because I think Biden is just a very malleable pawn and the election was stolen FOR him because of that.
“2. They do however think Trump was…”
No, marxist Danny, they think no such thing. They
thinkknow people like you make stuff up and attribute it to “they”.It’s a big f-king deal to the hundreds in prison for Jan 6
Hear! Hear! I am appalled that they are stuck there,,, what happened to our due process thing?
The Left happened
As predicted, a bunch of emotionally driven rant-style responses are given here instead of rational thought and discourse and focus on the bigger picture.
I worry about our ability to effectively take back control while being the adults in the room with emotional lib-mirror responses like these. Hopefully, America is not as bad as my mental picture of her is these days.
Am I a McCarthy fan? Eh not really…I’m in the Fuzzy camp on this one that he’s useful but not someone I have a large faith invested in. The House speaker position has become a dartboard for a while now. If McCarthy is the one to take those darts then so be it….it could be much, much worse (Cheney, Romney, etc.)
The “it could be worse” reasoning is why we’re at the point where pretty much every cultural institution is controlled by the left. We’re well past the point of pushing back hard and gutless reps like McCarthy aren’t going to cut it.
It’s more than telling that you feel a need to carry McCarthy’s water. Was he EVER a full-throated Trump supporter?
Who cares whether he was or not? It’s not part of the House GOP leader’s job to be a “full throated Trump supporter”. This is the Republican Party, not the Trump Party. The only relevant question is whether he has been a full-throated and effective advocate for conservative policy positions, and the answer is that he has.
I don’t understand Fuzzy’s position, because I can’t see any scenario in which it would have been good advice for Trump to resign, unless Pence had got on board the 25A idea, which he didn’t. And if Pence had done so, he would have been the appropriate one to give Trump that advice, not McCarthy. Even then, it would have taken 2/3 of each house, but with Pence’s support that might have been attainable.
Then he should reregister as an independent, rather than operate as a sub rosa agent Trojan Horse for his opponents.
Huh? He is not an independent, he’s a Republican. He’s completely loyal to it. It is not the Trump Party.
What exactly is a “Republican” then?
Where exactly does “Republican” end and RINO begin?
Republican is a set of principles, not loyalty to an individual, especially one who doesn’t even believe in any of those principles, who spent his whole life denying them, and only adopted them when he decided to go into politics.
OK then
What “principles” are these Republicans of which you speak and then which of these “Republicans” uphold these alleged “principles”?
I see RINO’s who violate these principles as it politically suits them and selling us down the river with no remorse but a big kickback.
“…and only adopted them when he decided to go into politics.”
As is typical, you are full of it. One only need look at what he has written for publication to know just the opposite is true. As is normal for any reasonable human that grows wiser with age, some positions will change.
Leftists like you make the normal abnormal.
Barry, let me just jump in before Milhouse blows a gasket. Milhouse is NOT by any stretch of the imagination a leftist.
I really have a huge problem with people on our side attacking others on our side as “leftists” because they aren’t sufficiently . . . what’s the rightwing equivalent of “woke”? We certainly need a term for it because our side is turning into a ridiculous parody of rabidly woke leftists and their depraved attack-and-cancel first, ask questions never approach to perceived wrongthink.
This is a dangerous, divisive, self-destructive path that we should avoid at all costs. Becoming the thing we hate is the road to humiliating defeat and the destruction of all we hold dear.
It’s probably too much to expect you to apologize to him for calling Milhouse a leftist, but please avoid doing so in future. He’s not. Not even close. And these attacks on our own are toxic and useful only to the actual radical left who are hellbent on destroying our great country.
For your part, Milhouse, do not even think about responding as you usually do to such false accusations. I have covered it.
How has he been “effective”?
As effective as a minority leader can be. Minorities in the House have very little power.
Thanks for all the examples of his effectiveness. By the same measure I would say “not” effective. Even with the limitations of being minority leader.
But we’re looking at if from now, when we know what happened. This call happened four days after J6, and ON J6 news outlets were reporting that the Cabinet was looking at the 25th. Pence didn’t publicly denounce the idea until January 12th, two days after this phone call.
Whether or not McCarthy, as House minority leader, had the correct authority or position to advise the president seems silly. From what I could tell from the taped audio discussion, McCarthy intended to give his opinion on the likelihood of the resolution passing the House, where he served as House minority leader, and it seems natural to offer advice should that happen. This seems like a weird nit to pick, Milhouse.
It’s not a nit, it’s the entire basis for your position. As you say, McCarthy intended to give his opinion on the likelihood of the resolution passing the House. But the resolution passing the House was completely irrelevant. It would not make Trump’s removal any more likely. It was not in any way a part of a process to remove him, it was just the House urging Pence to invoke the amendment, which he was always unlikely to do.
McCarthy’s statement only makes sense if the House resolution were part of the 25A process for removing a president. The only way I can reconcile it with your theory is to suppose that McCarthy never bothered to read the amendment, and had no idea that the House has no role in the process until and unless the VP and cabinet first vote to suspend the president, and then he challenges the suspension, and then the VP and cabinet refuse to reinstate him. And I find that difficult to suppose.
This is politics, Milhouse, not law. In the days following J6, it was not at all clear what was happening and very few of us (even on the right) were willing to stand up and say that things were getting blown way out of proportion in the immediate freakout over it and the “insurrection” BS that was spun all over at hyper-pitch. I did, and was the first or among the first to note the Reichstag elements of the Dem and media response–that comparison was not an accident. It did look like they were going to be able to spin J6 up into a presidency-crushing event. Republicans were denouncing the president, everyone was talking about invoking the 25th on the very day of J6, and yes, it did get reported that the Cabinet was debating whether or not to go with the 25th.
The driver, of course, would be public opinion, and in those earliest days, no one knew how that would fall since nothing like that exact thing had happened before. As soon as it was clear that Trump’s base and the sane were not going to get on board with any attempt to remove him from office, the GOP who had condemned him got behind him and stayed there. But that didn’t happen in four days, it took at least a week, and by that time all of this had already played out behind the scenes.
Here’s the truth, if the public had turned on Trump after J6 and were demanding his removal, he would have been removed. By the 25th, by the second impeachment + conviction in the Senate, or by his own resignation. That is not a question. Because this is politics, not law. That is why the Reichstag comparison was so apt. It was a trumped up event (possibly even created purposefully) that was designed as an excuse to remove a president (and quite possibly destroy the Republican Party as an added bonus). That it might work was not outside the realm of possibility on January 10th. It would make sense for McCarthy (and McConnell) as party leader to try to save the party even if it couldn’t save the president. It was supposed to destroy them both, of course, but it didn’t because the public at large did not turn on Trump and insist he be removed from office. If they had, do you really think Pence would have rejected the bid? With the American public clamoring for Trump’s head on a platter? It’s politics, and there is no way Trump would have survived if the Democrats and media had been successful in swaying the center and right against the president.
The whole thing was designed to destroy political support for Trump (as happened with Nixon), and if it had succeeded, Trump would have been removed or forced to resign. It’s a testament to his strength with the electorate (having just won–at least–10 million more votes in 2020 than he had in 2016, more than any incumbent president in history) that he survived this clear (I think orchestrated) attack. I mean think about it, how did NBC News know on J6 that the Cabinet was already discussing the 25th? Were they? Hmmm. And what was that coverage supposed to do to the American public?
In those earliest days, again, it was not at all clear what would happen. It took Pence SIX days to say he would not support the 25th push. Why do you think that is? Why not say it on J6 when it first was floated? He had to know, they all had to know, if the tide had turned against Trump. Had it, he’d have been gone that week. It didn’t, so they rallied around him. In the end, it was all about how the public reacted, what they demanded, and that is how it should be.
I don’t understand the personal attacks on Fuzzy. I understand her on this one, although I hope someone better than McCarthy can take the reigns.
reins! uggh I need to down vote myself …
McCarthy needs to be replaced regardless of what he said. He and Mitch are thinly-veiled controlled opposition and they are the GOP’s supposer leadership.
I don’t know what is meant by a “25th amendment resolution” by the House, but the 25th amendment can only be invoked by the vice president and a majority vote in the cabinet. If the VP is not on board the whole thing doesn’t start. Only if the VP decides to invoke it, he convenes a cabinet meeting, and if a majority support him the president is automatically suspended.
Congress only gets involved if the president then files a protest and seeks to be reinstated, and the VP and cabinet majority refuse. That’s when Congress decides the issue. It takes 2/3 of each house to remove him; less than that, and he’s back in office and immediately able to fire all the cabinet members who voted to remove him. (He can’t fire the VP, because the VP doesn’t work for him.)
Of course this is all a very unlikely scenario. And without Pence on board it could never have got started. Any resolution the House passed would have been legally irrelevant.
To be clear, it was merely a resolution of the House calling on Pence to invoke the 25th. A mere expression of opinion, with no legal effect. And he had already said he wouldn’t, so it had no purpose except to show off. Had McCarthy advised the President to resign on that basis it would have been terrible advice.
Even if the senate had passed a similar resolution, it would still have been terrible advice, for the same reason. The opinions of the House and Senate are irrelevant until and unless the VP decides to invoke the amendment.
And even if all that had happened, even if Pence and a majority of the cabinet had turned against Trump, it would not be good advice for him to resign unless it looked like 2/3 of each house backed them.
If the left wants to Harry-Reid McCarthy… I don’t care.
Somebody has to get him out of the pecking order.
If the Democrats want to do it for us… I don’t care.
If he were like DeSantis, we’d have his back seven days a week.
But he’s nothing like DeSantis. He’s like Cheney.
I’m more cynical. Why don’t we ask the C.of C and big money donors who will be Speaker after the midterm elections? I hear McCarthy is a good fundraiser. He collects and distributes the donations very well.
To start the Democrats Propaganda Ministry cannot be trusted.
OK, I’ll give McCarthy the benefit of the doubt. But I still don’t want him to be Speaker and second in the line of succession behind Biden and Harris, Can we separate the issues? While slim, there is a possibility the next speaker becomes POTUS.
Said or not he’s still a RINO that shouldn’t have the job he does.
This article is total BS. Even if they got 12 cabinet members to sign off on removing Trump on the 25th amendment, it NEVER would have passed a two third majority vote in both the House and Senate and McCarthy knows this. This article is grasping at straws to protect McCarthy.
If Pence had got on board then I think a 2/3 majority might have been attainable. But he had already said he wasn’t doing it, and without him it could never even get to Congress.
Within the next just under 3 years we will see if this 25th Amendment is on the up and up or not.
No, we won’t. I don’t even know what you mean by “on the up and up”. It’s part of the constitution. It’s the supreme law of the land. It doesn’t have to pass any tests. It’s “on the up and up” by definition.
It’s possible that sometime in the next 3 years Harris and the Biden cabinet may decide to invoke it against Biden. If so, he may or may not protest, and if he does then Congress will decide. But there’s no reason that has to happen. If Harris and the cabinet continue to be OK with Slow Joe filling his seat and constantly embarrassing them, that’s their prerogative. Nothing says they have to remove him, so long as he remains capable of signing his name on things put before him. And it’s not as if Harris would embarrass them any less.
BTW, Trump is having yet another spectacular weekend but hey, let’s not talk about that. Trump and DeSantis are driving a steamroller against the left and setting everything up for the end of the Uniparty but hey, let’s not talk about that. The weaker half of the McConnell/McCarthy Uniparty tag team is having a rough time with Liz Cheney. Yeah, let’s talk about THAT!
Here’s something worth talking about. DeSantis just put Twitter on notice that Florida, as shareholders in their pension and other investments, are looking to sue the board for failure to honor their fiduciary duty of acting in the best interests of company shareholders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miKnbv3o7ck
The snowball keeps rolling on its way to crush woke corporatism. Now let’s wait and see what else Trump has planned for today.
J6 was the American Spring a la Biden/Maidan/Slavic Spring in the catastrophic Obama world Spring series. An unarmed woman murdered. An invitation summarily withdrawn, a riot forced, and civilians assaulted (the “insurrection”). A probable Whitmer-gate (i.e. collusion, entrapment and cover-up of planned parent/hood – excess deaths – similar to Cuomo, the man from planned parent/hood, and sexual harassment).
How many years… trimesters have Americans citizens been denied their civil rights for Pelosi and her Pro-Choice “ethical” religious causes?
What has McCarthy done to earn the position of Speaker if the repubs take back the house? That is the real question that needs to be answered.
There are stories out there that he is great at fundraising, isn’t that one of the problems in DC today?
He was picked early on by Boehner for a leadership position as a Steering committee member then the repubs House Whip. He never led a committee. He walked up one step on the ladder when Cantor lost his primary. In 2015 he quit during his campaign to become speaker.
Frankly. I have minimal trust in this guy to be an effective leader,, all of this before Trump was ever in the picture and I haven’t seen anything to change my mind after Trump appeared.
He’s still a RINO.