Top House and Senate Republicans vowed to remove former President Donald Trump from American politics after he incited a mob to attack Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021, but backed off their criticism of the disgraced former president out of fear. to his followers, according to a report. next book of two New York Times reporters
“I’m sick of this guy,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said of Trump in the days after a horde of his supporters stormed the House and Senate workplace hoping to stop the quadrennial certification of the electoral college votes that confirmed President Joe Biden as Trump’s successor.
In his book, This Will Not Happen: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Futureauthors Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns report that McCarthy was so outraged by the then-president’s conduct that he told associates he would pressure Trump to resign before his term expired.
McCarthy, who said Trump “bears responsibility” for mob violence in comments from the House floor, reportedly went further in his criticism of the former president in a Jan. 8 phone call with other House Republicans. .
According to Martin and Burns, he called Trump’s behavior that day “appalling and totally wrong” and blamed him squarely for “inciting people” to attack the Capitol two days earlier in comments he said were “not right in any way.” way”. or form”.
Donald Trump and Kevin McCarthy at Mar-a-Lago
(Save America)
Two days later, McCarthy reportedly told his leadership team that House Democrats would have enough votes to pass an unprecedented second set of articles of impeachment against Trump and said he would tell Trump to resign once the election was over. vote.
“What he did is unacceptable. No one can defend that and no one should defend it,” he said, adding that he would say to the then-president, “I believe this will pass, and it would be my recommendation that he resign.”
But no such conversation ever took place between McCarthy and Trump, and one of his colleagues warned him that Trump supporters “go nuts” any time a Republican criticizes Trump in any way and demands that Republicans investigate Hunter. Biden or Hillary. Clinton, neither of whom incited a mob to storm the Capitol.
Instead, McCarthy returned to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home later that month, trying to retract his earlier lukewarm criticism of the disgraced former president.