Most every Republican lawmaker expressed outrage in the days after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Some even blamed then-President Donald Trump.
But the larger GOP narrative shifted in the weeks and months that followed. Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy, who had said in the hours after the attack that it had been “the saddest day I have ever had serving as a member of this institution,” went on to visit Trump at his Florida home only weeks after the riot.
