
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Monday downplayed secretly recorded remarks he made about Donald Trump shortly after last year's attack on the Capitol. He also said he never told the then-president that he should resign — something news organizations have not reported.
McCarthy's comments were his first public remarks since The New York Times reported last week that on a Jan. 10, 2021, phone call with fellow Republicans, he said he was “seriously thinking” about telling Trump “he should resign.” McCarthy initially called that report “totally false and wrong.” The newspaper later released a recording of him making those remarks and it was played on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show.