(Headline USA) Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., reportedly blamed former President Donald Trump for the Jan. 6 Capitol protests to colleagues and wanted him to leave office.
In the weeks that followed the Jan. 6 melee, both McCarthy and McConnell publicly blamed Trump but stopped short of calling for him to be removed from office. However, two reporters with the New York Times alleged in a new book that both Republican leaders wanted Trump gone, and said so privately.
“What he did is unacceptable,” McCarthy reportedly told his leadership team on Jan. 10. “Nobody can defend that and nobody should defend it.”
During that same meeting, McCarthy allegedly said that he would talk to Trump and urge him to resign if he was impeached by Congress.
Three days later, McCarthy apparently changed his mind. In a Jan. 13 House floor speech, McCarthy said that while Trump “bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters,” he should not be removed from office.
McConnell, for his part, allegedly told associates in private that Trump’s behavior was impeachable, even though he voted to acquit Trump during the Senate’s impeachment trial.
On Jan. 11, McConnell reportedly told his top advisers that he wouldn’t vote against Trump because “the Democrats are going to take care of that son of a b**** for us.”
A spokesman for McCarthy, Mark Bednar, denied the report and said McCarthy never said he would ask Trump to resign.
“He did not say that,” Bednar said in a statement.
One of the book’s authors, Alex Burns, insisted that he stands by the book’s reporting.
“We are a thousand percent confident in our sourcing on that comment,” Burns told CNN on Thursday.
McCarthy planned to ask Trump to resign.
McConnell cheered Dems for impeaching “son of a b****” Trump.
Both men talked 25th Amendment.All according to new book by @jmartNYT and @alexburnsNYT.
They joined @NewDay on the new revelations. pic.twitter.com/gauXXxzy1W— Brianna Keilar (@brikeilarcnn) April 21, 2022
