New recordings reveal that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told his colleagues that he feared that several far-right members of the Republican conference could incite attacks on his colleagues after the January 6 insurrection, The New York Times reported.
The recordings are part of Times reporters Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin’s new book “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future.”
On 10 January, four days after the insurrection, Mr McCarthy specifically faulted Representatives Matt Gaetz of Florida and Mo Brooks of Alabama, the latter of whom spoke at the “Stop the Steal” rally at the White House Ellipse ahead of the raid on the Capitol.
“I’m going to call Gaetz,” he said in a call with House GOP leadership. “Don’t assume I see everything, don’t assume I know everything, but we got to have one central point.”
Mr McCarthy’s plans to speak with Mr Gaetz, one of former president Donald Trump’s most vociferous apologists, had attacked Representative Liz Cheney, then chairwoman of the House Republican Conference. Ms Cheney would later vote to impeach Mr Trump and Mr McCarthy would later lead an effort to oust her from her leadership post.
In the audio, Mr McCarthy specifically criticised Mr Gaetz for going on Newsmax and saying Ms Cheney is “anti-Trump.”
“He’s putting people in jeopardy,” Mr McCarthy said of Mr Gaetz. “And he doesn’t need to be doing this. We saw what people would do in the Capitol, you know, and these people came prepared with rope, with everything else.”
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise agreed with Mr McCarthy and added that Mr Brooks and Representative Louie Gohmert’s comments concerned some other members.
“Mo was at the Rally,” Mr Scalise said, citing how Mr Brooks told rallygoers to “start taking down names and kicking ass.”
Mr McCarthy said that he was going to call Mr Gaetz and was receiving another briefing from the FBI.
“This is serious s--t, to cut this out,” he said.
“It’s potentially illegal what he’s doing,” Mr Scalise said.
Mr Gaetz criticised Mr McCarthy in remarks to The Times on Tuesday.
“While I was protecting President Trump from impeachment, they were protecting Liz Cheney from criticism,” he said.
Mr McCarthy also criticised the rhetoric of Republican Representatives Barry Moore of Alabama and Lauren Boebert of Colorado. Ms Cheney for her part criticised Ms Boebert for tweeting sensitive information, particularly when Ms Boebert tweeted that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was removed from the chamber.
