(FRI 4/22/22)
In the era of American politics before Donald J. Trump, the man who would be next year’s House speaker, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) would now be toast. After he tweeted that the book, This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America's Future is “totally false and wrong” reporting he had “a plan” to remove then-lame duck President Trump from the White House after the January 6 Capitol insurrection and before President Biden’s inauguration January 20, authors of the book released an audio recording proving he had said just that in a phone call to other House GOP leaders.
Authors Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns are reporters for The New York Times. Read the newspaper’s story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/21/us/politics/trump-mitch-mcconnell-kevin-mccarthy.html
In a recording of the January 10, 2021 call, McCarthy asked the other Republican leaders about the mechanism for invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump, whom he faulted for “inciting people” to attack the Capitol. Rep. Liz Cheney, of Wyoming, asked McCarthy whether Trump might resign over it.
McCarthy was doubtful, according to The New York Times, but he told the group of GOP leaders he had a plan to tell Trump of the impending impeachment resolution in the House of Representatives and that it was time to go.
“What he did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend that and nobody should defend it,” McCarthy said.
On January 11, according to the NYT, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told two longtime advisors he expected a sufficient number of Republicans to vote to convict Trump, which held the possibility the former president would not be allowed to run again.
By the end of the month, McCarthy had kissed Trump’s ring on a surprise weekend visit to Mar-a-Lago. On February 13, eight Republican senators joined 50 Democrats and Independents to convict, nine short of the two-thirds vote necessary. That May, McCarthy stripped Cheney of her number-three position in the party’s caucus leadership (Cheney denies she leaked the January 8 call recording).
Still the future speaker?: McCarthy yearns to replace Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as House speaker, of course, under the expectation that Republicans will obliterate Democrats in this November’s mid-term elections. Will he maintain sufficient support of both traditional Republicans and MAGA Republicans to win re-election for California’s 23rd District? Thanks to a new congressional district map, McCarthy has not just two Democratic challengers, but also Republican Jay Obernolte, incumbent for California’s 8th District, according to Ballotpedia. The state’s non-partisan primary is June 7.
Meanwhile, a likely subpoena of McCarthy from the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection, on which Cheney is one of two Republicans, looms.
--Todd Lassa