House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is being pressed about reported details of a call he had with then-President Donald Trump on Jan. 6 as protesters were storming the U.S. Capitol.
In February, CNN reported that McCarthy had a phone call with Trump as protesters stormed the building and that the former president told him, “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.”
During an appearance on Fox News on Sunday, the California Republican was asked whether those remarks were accurate.
He said, “When I talked to President Trump about [it], I was the first person to contact him when the riots were going on. He didn’t see it. When he ended the call [he] was telling me he would put something out to make sure to stop this. And that’s what he did, he put a video out later.”
Host Chris Wallace retorted, “Quite a lot later. And it was a pretty weak video.”
He asked, “Did he say to you, ‘I guess some people are more concerned about the election than you are?'”
“No, listen, my conversations with the president are my conversations with the president. I engaged in the idea of making sure we could stop what was going on inside the Capitol at that moment in time. The president said he would help,” McCarthy responded.
He also flatly denied that Trump had ever reached out with him to discuss what they had spoken about on Jan. 6. He admitted that if Trump did reach out to have such a conversation it would be witness tampering, but maintained that such a conversation never took place.
Watch the video below:
Kevin McCarthy refuses to answer Chris Wallace's question about whether it's true that Trump told him, "Well Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are" when McCarthy called and urged him to call off the insurrectionists on January 6 pic.twitter.com/cSYSPUs8OO
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 25, 2021
In February, a Republican who claimed to be familiar with the call told CNN that two men got into a “shouting match” during the riot with McCarthy asking Trump, “Who the f**k do you think you are talking to?”
Another Republican told the network, “[Trump] is not a blameless observer, he was rooting for them. On January 13, Kevin McCarthy said on the floor of the House that the President bears responsibility and he does.”