As the impeachment trial comes to a close in the Senate, chilling new details of a telephone call are emerging between Donald Trump and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy on January 6th. CNN writes:
In an expletive-laced phone call with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy while the Capitol was under attack, then-President Donald Trump said the rioters cared more about the election results than McCarthy did. “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump said, according to lawmakers who were briefed on the call afterward by McCarthy.
According to those with knowledge of the call, McCarthy insisted the rioters were Trump supporters and he begged the president to call them off. A shouting match between the two ensued and CNN reports:
A furious McCarthy told the then-President the rioters were breaking into his office through the windows, and asked Trump, “Who the f–k do you think you are talking to?” according to a Republican lawmaker familiar with the call.
CNN says their sources for the conversation are several GOP members of the House. The exchange, they claim, “showed Trump had no intention of calling off the rioters even as lawmakers were pleading with him to intervene. Several said it amounted to a dereliction of his presidential duty.”
Closing arguments are scheduled for Saturday, and a vote will come today unless witnesses are called. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) proposed suspending the trial and deposing McCarthy and Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL).
The reason to depose the Alabama Republican? Politico reported on Thursday:
“ (Tuberville) revealed to reporters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday night that he told Trump that Pence was being evacuated and, essentially, in danger mid-Jan. 6 siege. “I said, ‘Mr. President, they just took the vice president out, I’ve got to go,’” he said, recounting a call that happened just moments after Pence left the chamber around 2:15 p.m. that day. As our Kyle Cheney points out, the notion that Trump knew Pence was in danger and did nothing could be significant to the managers’ impeachment case. In fact, at 2:24 p.m., Trump attacked Pence on Twitter for having no “courage” to overturn the election in his favor.