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.
