TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. You know the audiotapes recently released of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy recorded in the days after the attack on the Capitol? In a January 10 recorded phone call, McCarthy said he was thinking of asking Trump to resign. In another part of the call, McCarthy expressed his concern about extremist rhetoric from Republican lawmakers and said he didn't want to look back and think, quote, "we caused something or we missed something and someone got hurt." Those tapes and more were obtained by my guests, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, as part of their reporting for their new book, "This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, And The Battle For America's Future." They describe their book as being in part about how telling Trump what he wanted to hear became a way of life for an entire political party and how the gulf between what Republican leaders said privately about Trump and their public deference had gone unchallenged for half a decade. Martin and Burns are national correspondent for The New York Times and political analysts for CNN. Our interview was recorded yesterday.
Jonathan Martin, Alex Burns, welcome to FRESH AIR. I want to start with one of the tapes, and this is part of the phone call on January 10 with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, the second-ranking House Republican, and Liz Cheney, the House member who has stood firm in her denunciation of Trump's behavior and is serving on the House Select Committee investigating January 6. Also on the call is Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, head of the Republican House Campaign Committee. And a number of aides are on the call as well. So set the scene. What's the context for this phone call?
