House minority leader Kevin McCarthy was fearful several far-right members of Congress would incited violence against other lawmakers after Jan. 6, according to tapes of phone conversations released to the New York Times.
Mr. McCarthy talked to other congressional Republicans about wanting to rein in multiple hard-liners who were deeply involved in Donald J. Trump’s efforts to contest the 2020 election and undermine the peaceful transfer of power, according to an audio recording obtained by The New York Times.
In particular, McCarthy was worried about Florida GOP Rep Matt Gaetz “putting people in jeopardy.” Listen to part of the conversation in this excerpt broadcast by CNN:
The audio that was obtained is part of an upcoming book, “This Will Not Pass” by two Times reporters.
And, as those Times not so delicately puts it, McCarthy did not follow through on punishment for some of the Trump hardliners, “opting instead to seek a political accommodation with the most extreme members of the G.O.P. in the interests of advancing his own career.”
The Times adds that Mr. McCarthy’s remarks “represent one of the starkest acknowledgments from a Republican leader that the party’s rank-and-file lawmakers played a role in stoking violence on Jan. 6, 2021.”