As it stands today, Kevin McCarthy appears to be one of Donald Trump’s staunchest allies, consistently defending the often-targeted former President at just about every turn.
McCarthy, like Trump, appears to be in the crosshairs of the select committee investigating the events of January 6th, 2021, and it could be that this entire cadre of conservatives is looking to band together against the partisan assault of the group.
But new reports reveal that McCarthy may have once held a very different opinion about that event, and it could come back to haunt him in the coming weeks.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said publicly and privately in the days following the deadly riots at the US Capitol that President Donald Trump admitted personally bearing some responsibility for the attack — one of several reasons why the select committee on January 6 wants to hear from the House’s top Republican.
McCarthy shared the details of his conversation with Trump in a little-noticed local radio interview done a week after the insurrection, in which McCarthy said he supported a committee to investigate the attack and supported censuring then-President Trump. While McCarthy made similar comments about supporting censure and a bipartisan commission in other places around the same time, the radio interview — in which McCarthy has harsh words for Trump and strongly condemns the violent attack — provides yet another example of how the California Republican has shifted his tone in the year since the insurrection.
It will be hard for McCarthy to claim that his words are being taken out of context.
“I say he has responsibility,” McCarthy said on KERN, a local radio station in Bakersfield, California, on January 12 of last year. “He told me personally that he does have some responsibility. I think a lot of people do.”
Now we will just need to wait and see if Donald Trump takes McCarthy to task for the older comment, or if they’ll continue to circle the wagons.
