Donald Trump’s stranglehold on the GOP was on full display this week as House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy sought to make amends with the mercurial former president after a leaked audio revealed he considered urging Trump to resign after last year’s Capitol insurrection.
McCarthy’s call to Trump — and his rapid outreach to the former president and House colleagues in the hours after the New York Times dropped the recording — reveal the minority leader’s complex and often tortured relationship with Trump and the lingering fear gripping many in the GOP of publicly crossing him.
And it underscores that a closely held congressional probe into the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters still has the potential to drop bombshells as the panel moves toward public hearings. McCarthy’s remarks make clear that some Republicans who’ve portrayed themselves as firmly behind Trump were — at least privately — expressing doubts about such solid support in the days after the insurrection.
Trump said Friday in an interview with the Wall Street Journal said his relationship with McCarthy is good.
“I heard the call. I didn’t like the call,” Trump said of the recording in the Journal interview at his Mar-a-Lago resort. “But almost immediately as you know, because he came here and we took a picture right there — you know, the support was very strong,”
For McCarthy, 57, a Californian who Trump has awkwardly called “my Kevin,” a political alliance with the 45th president is the price he chooses to pay for his ambitions to be House speaker, should Republicans take the majority in the November election.
The Trump-McCarthy relationship is politically beneficial for both, according to a person familiar with the former president’s thinking. This latest episode gives Trump another advantage in that McCarthy now owes him for letting this episode go without reaction.
McCarthy isn’t alone. Many Republicans know their fortunes can hinge on a Trump endorsement — most recently illustrated with the surge in Ohio GOP Senate candidate J.D. Vance’s polling and fundraising. Trump backed him despite Vance’s past criticism.
McCarthy’s approach to dealing with Trump stands in contrast to that of Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, who savaged Trump in the immediate aftermath of the riot even though he voted to acquit during the impeachment trial. But after casting that vote he said Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for provoking the violence.
Since then, McConnell has kept Trump at arm’s length and seldom mentions him in public. Trump in turn has excoriated McConnell, calling him “Old Crow” and urging the party to replace him as Senate GOP leader.
But senators, with their six-year terms and statewide races, tend to have more leeway than House lawmakers, particularly those like McCarthy from deeply red districts. Nonetheless, McConnell has said he would vote for Trump if he is the Republican nominee in 2024.
One of the few House Republicans who has dared to cross Trump — Liz Cheney of Wyoming — has been stripped from her party leadership post. McCarthy and other leaders then joined Trump in endorsing Cheney’s primary opponent.
“This ain’t your father’s Republican party,” President Joe Biden said at an event Friday, summing his view of Trump’s continued hold on lawmakers. “And the people who know better are afraid to act correctly because they know they will be primaried.”
Biden’s comments were reminiscent of those made in January by another former lawmaker and vice president: Dick Cheney.
“It’s not a leadership that resembles any of the folks I knew when I was here for 10 years,” he said as he and his daughter were the only Republicans present on the House floor during the one-year remembrance of the Capitol attack.
Damage control
After calling Trump on Thursday, McCarthy placed calls to key House Republicans to assure them that he’s still on good terms with Trump, according to a person familiar with the discussions. The person, who asked for anonymity because the talks were private, and others suggested the controversy was likely to blow over quickly.
“I don’t think this is a story that is going anywhere” Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said of McCarthy on Fox Business Friday. “I support him whole-heartedly.”
The New York Times also published this week audio of another conference call confirming what Bloomberg News reported at the time — that McCarthy told fellow Republicans that Trump had acknowledged having some responsibility for the riot.
Trump denied saying that in the Journal interview.
“I never claimed responsibility,” he said.
Details of that meeting — as well as McCarthy’s frequent Mar-a-Lago trips to discuss fundraising with Trump — is among the information the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack has sought. McCarthy has refused to voluntarily be interviewed by the panel.
Link to committee’s letter to McCarthy
McCarthy’s relationship with Trump goes back to at least 2016, when he served as the conduit between the controversial presidential candidate and the then-House Speaker Paul Ryan, who did not endorse Trump until May 2016.
Other Republicans, including Trump loyalist Jim Jordan of Ohio, also have spurned the committee’s requests for interviews. The committee, on which Cheney serves as vice chair, has not announced any subpoenas of lawmakers, yet.
