A good majority of the Republican Party still stands fast in their support for the scandal-ridden, corrupt, washed-up ex-president — despite all of the ever-mounting legal peril and scandal Donald Trump continually finds himself in as he wades his way through his pathetic post-White House life. For whatever reason — whether it’s fear or blackmail or just their deep-seated desire to remain as power-hungry and racist as Trump allowed them to openly be throughout his presidential term — so many of the most notable Republicans on the Hill have yet to turn their back on number 45.
At least, in the public’s eye, that is.
Over the year-plus that Donald Trump has been out of the White House, more and more details from behind closed doors have come to light — including the true feelings and actions of some of the most key figures in the Trump GOP.
POLITICO Playbook made waves this morning with newly published excerpts from American journalist Robert Draper’s bombshell upcoming book, The Enabler. The telling excerpts shed new light on an alleged explosive blow-up at Trump from none other than California Republican and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy Jan. 6, 2021, the day of the fateful, violent attack against the US Capitol building and the congressional members inside, by a mob of Donald Trump’s most rabid supporters, as they desperately clung to Trump’s waning political power.
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A rather fiery phone conversation between the then-president and the California Republican was previously reported on, but excerpts of Draper’s upcoming book have now exposed new details of McCarthy’s anger with the 45th president.
Just before 3 pm on January 6th, as rioters actively stormed and raged throughout the Capitol building, Donald Trump allegedly told McCarthy on the phone, “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.”
McCarthy later recalled the explosive conversation to a Republican colleague and admitted that he fired back at the then-outgoing president.
“More upset?” Kevin claimed to have shot back at Donald Trump during the phone call. “THEY’RE TRYING TO F*CKING KILL ME!”
Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler would go on to expose the truth of McCarthy’s J6 phone call with Trump to reporters, according to reporting from The Washington Post — revelations that House impeachment managers tried and failed to convince her to testify about during the Senate impeachment trial. Following Beutler’s public revelations about the call, McCarthy would allegedly go on to berate her so severely that she was left in literal tears.
According to the book, McCarthy went on to hold a private meeting in his office, where he shouted, “After all the work I have done for the Republican Party, the money I have raised! After all the work I have done for you! … I alone am taking all the heat to protect people from Trump! I alone am holding the party together! I have been working with Trump to keep him from going after Republicans like you and blowing up the party and destroying all our work! … You should have come to me! Why did you go to the press? This is no way to thank me!”
Beutler allegedly learned of the dirty details of the call between McCarthy and Trump when she approached the House Minority Leader for advice on her impending vote regarding the Trump impeachment over the January 6th Capitol insurrection. In that conversation, McCarthy allegedly told Beutler the dark truth about that explosive phone call, seemingly in hopes that the House rep. would use that information as her basis to vote in favor of Donald Trump’s impeachment from office — which she did.
After going public with the information and finding herself screamed down to tears by the California Republican, Beutler allegedly told McCarthy, “What did you want me to do? Lie? I did what I thought was right!”
Read the full reporting on the excerpts from POLITICO Playbook here.
Featured image via Kevin McCarthy/House.gov
