Former President Trump and House of Representatives minority leader Kevin McCarthy (California) have said their relationship has not broken down after recordings surfaced this week in which McCarthy said he would advise former President Trump to resign if will be impeached after the Capitol riots on January 6.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal at his residence in Mar-a-Lago, Trump said he “did not like the call” McCarthy made at the GOP conference, but that their relationship is still on good terms.
The New York Times published this week audio recordings of a GOP conference call on January 10, 2021, made just days after the Capitol riot.
During the conversation, McCarthy said that if there was an impeachment, he would advise Trump to resign.
“What I think I’m going to do is call him,” McCarthy said of the recording. “The only discussion I would have with him is that I think this will pass and my recommendation is to resign. I mean, that would be my opinion, but I don’t think he would accept it. But I do not know.”
Earlier, McCarthy denied telling his colleagues Trump to resign.
Trump told the Journal that after McCarthy learned the “facts,” he changed his mind.
“But almost immediately, as you know, because he came here and we took a picture right there – you know, the support was very strong,” Trump said, adding that McCarthy changed his position “when he found out the facts.”
“I think it’s a big compliment, to be honest,” Trump said. “They realized they were wrong and they supported me.
McCarthy also told colleagues on the phone that he had “had an affair” with Trump.
“I want everyone to have all the information they need. I had it with this man. What he did is unacceptable. “No one can defend this, and no one should defend it,” McCarthy said in a recording of the conversation, first published on CNN on Friday morning.
McCarthy also said Friday that his relationship with the former president is still intact, according to footage from the California Republican, shot by CBS reporter Musadik Bidar.
The minority leader said he and Trump spoke twice on Friday and had a “good talk” about the recordings.
“I never asked President Trump to resign,” McCarthy said.
Pressed whether the leader of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives ever thought that Trump should resign, McCarthy rejected.
“No, I never asked the president to resign, I never thought he should resign,” McCarthy said.
Green rejects criticism from Jan. 6 during a tense hearing that McCarthy’s future hangs in the dark as Washington awaits Trump’s response.
The California Republican also said while speaking to reporters that his conversation with the leadership of the House of Representatives on January 10 was “exaggerated”, adding that the representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) Asked him about the 25th Amendment and should “To explain what else would happen.”
“I just went through different scenarios, that’s all that happened,” McCarthy said, and later said that “it was never in the process of asking President Trump to resign.”
In an interview with the Journal, Trump will not say directly whether he will support McCarthy to become president of the House if Republicans regain the House this fall.
“Well, I don’t know anyone else who can run, and I think I actually had a very good relationship with him,” Trump told The Journal. “I like him. And apart from that short period of time, I suspect he likes me a lot.”
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