Name: Kevin McCarthy Is Now Lying About the Capitol Riot to Make Trump Like Him
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Kevin McCarthy Is Now Lying About the Capitol Riot to Make Trump Like Him

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A week after armed supporters of Donald Trump stormed the Capitol, Kevin McCarthy laid blame for the deadly insurrection at the feet of his party’s leader. “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters,” in a floor speech. “He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.” The scolding was ultimately meaningless, considering the House Minority Leader—who’d promoted the president’s election fraud claims—still voted against certifying the election and later against Trump’s impeachment. But it seemed to reflect a fear, on the part of McCarthy and other GOP leaders, that the party could bear a political cost for the attack if it didn’t at least pay a little lip service to contrition.But the bill never came due, and now, four months later, McCarthy and other Trump allies are seeking to rewrite the history of January 6 instead of taking responsibility for it. In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, McCarthy was repeatedly pressed by Chris Wallace about Trump’s reaction to the violence. Had he, as Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler claimed, begged Trump by phone that day to call his supporters off, only for Trump to shrug that “these people are more upset about the election than you are?” McCarthy wouldn’t say. But as he tied himself in knots trying to dodge Wallace’s questions, he offered this account of how Trump responded to the Capitol attack:“I was the first person to contact him when the riots were going on. He didn’t see it,” McCarthy said. “What he ended the call with saying, telling me he’ll put something out to make sure to stop this, and that’s what he did. He put a video out later.”This content can also be viewed on the site it from.When Wallace pointed out that the video McCarthy referenced came out “quite a lot later,” and wasn’t exactly the full-throated condemnation that one might expect from a commander-in-chief when armed terrorists are stalking the halls of government trying to hang his vice president (Trump repeated the lie that the election was stolen from him and concluded by telling the insurrectionists that “we love you”), the California congressman was again mealy-mouthed. “I engaged in the idea of making sure we could stop what was going on inside the Capitol at that moment in time,” McCarthy said. “The president said he would help.”The notion that Trump—who urged his supporters to “fight” and to march to the Capitol, and who watched with glee as they followed his orders—was somehow unaware of what was going on just down the road from the White House is laughable, as is the notion that he quickly sought to put an end to it. That McCarthy himself is aware of this privately, but will not say so publicly, is both embarrassing and indicative of where the party stands One ally after another has gone on the record to describe how frustrated McCarthy was as Trump peddled the self-serving fictions that would lay the foundation for the Capitol Hill violence. “Every day seemed worse than the day before,” Republican pollster Frank Luntz the New York Times on Sunday. But McCarthy is to abandon Trump—or his like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz—and draw ire from the MAGA base whose support he’ll need if he wants to ascend to House Speaker in the future. “[Trump] goes up and down with his anger,” McCarthy told the Times in a published Sunday. “He’s mad at everybody one day. He’s mad at me one day.”“He could change the whole course of history,” he continued, acknowledging Trump’s role as a GOP kingmaker. “This is the tightest tightrope anyone has to walk.”It’s all a political calculation for McCarthy, who is aware that his own ambitions require staying in the former president’s good graces. But indulging Trump’s lies about the election is precisely what allowed the attack, which McCarthy told a colleague left him “depressed,” to transpire. Peddling new lies now could come with its own consequences. “[McCarthy] added a new chapter to revisionist history,” as CNN’s John Berman . “Or tried to erase a chapter of actual history. Or maybe he just made stuff up.”More Great Stories From Vanity Fair&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;— of an OnlyFans Model and Her Über-Wealthy Boyfriend— Wyoming Tells Donald Trump Jr. to — A Is Upending the Hamptons Social Order— How a Group of Rich Memphians During Capitol Attack— Prosecutors Are in Trump Investigations— Republicans Brave Plan to Stop Mass Shootings: — of Female Journalists Puts News Outlets to the Test— Six Photographers Share Images From — From the Archive: , the Ballad of Richard Jewell— Serena Williams, Michael B. Jordan, Gal Gadot, and more are coming to your favorite screen April 13–15. Get your tickets to here.Most Popular is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. He lives in Chicago.The freshest-and most essential-updates from Washington, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley.

A week after armed supporters of Donald Trump stormed the Capitol, Kevin McCarthy laid blame for the deadly insurrection at the feet of his party’s leader. “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters,” in a floor speech. “He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.” The scolding was ultimately meaningless, considering the House Minority Leader—who’d promoted the president’s election fraud claims—still voted against certifying the election and later against Trump’s impeachment. But it seemed to reflect a fear, on the...

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Eric Lutz

Vanity Fair is a monthly magazine of popular culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast in the United States.  The first version of Vanity Fair was published from 1913 to 1936. The imprint was revived in 1983 and currently includes five international editions of the magazine. As of 2018, the Editor-in-Chief is Radhika Jones.

Kevin McCarthy Is Now Lying About the Capitol Riot to Make Trump Like Him

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