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:
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:
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.
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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