4/23/22: If
you missed it, the free press, doing what the free press does best, kicked over
a D.C. stone this week. All the little creatures scurried out, heading in various
directions, seeking new dark places to hide.
____________________
Kevin McCarthy Caught on Tape Telling the Truth
Again.
____________________
Thursday, The New York Times reported that in the wake of the
January 6, 2021, attack on Capitol Hill, Rep. Kevin McCarthy told top Republican
leaders, including Rep. Liz Cheney, that he was going to call then-President
Trump and tell him he should resign. McCarthy, Cheney, and others, spoke by phone
on January 10.
The ink had hardly dried on the printed page before McCarthy was out
with a claim that the Times story was “totally false and wrong.” His
spokesman chipped in with a bonus Ninth Commandment-breaker, insisting, “McCarthy never said he’d call Trump to say he
should resign.”
*
The “Fake News” people
happened to have tape.
The problem for McCarthy – but not the problem for anyone who values
truth – was that the “Fake News” people had tape. The New York Times countered
McCarthy’s lie by making the tape available.
You don’t have to be a flaming liberal, as is this blogger, to quickly conclude
that McCarthy was fabricating furiously (and as we shall see, this was not the
first time he was caught telling the truth on tape). If you have eardrums
that function, and a mind not clamped shut like a bear trap that missed catching
facts, I urge you to listen to the tape. If you love this country, for God’s
sake, listen.
Rachel Maddow was kind enough to play the tape on her Thursday night MSNBC show, providing graphics
so viewers could read along.
At one point, Rep. Cheney (who doesn’t lie – and has therefore been drummed
out of the Trumplican Party) asks if McCarthy thinks Trump might resign.
He responds:
 |
"I've had a few discussions. My gut tells me no. I'm seriously thinking of having that conversation with him tonight. I haven't talked to him in a couple of days." |
He continues:
 |
"Um, from what I know of him, I mean you guys all know him too, do you think he'd ever back away? But what I think I'm going to do, is I'm going to call him." |
McCarthy had already told his listeners that an impeachment resolution was
coming – and might in fact be leveled against Trump, even after his time in
office came to an end on January 20.
He explained:
 |
"This, this is what I think, we know it'll pass the House. I think there's a chance it'll pass the Senate, even when he's gone. Um, and I think there's a lot of different ramifications for that." |
He assured everyone
on the line that he hadn’t discussed the matter with the “Dem’s,” then added,
 |
"Now, this is one personal fear I have. I do not want to get into any conversation about Pence pardoning." |
*
On that fateful day, it sounded like the
nation might have hope.
Let me beg
you, if you are a good American, if you truly care about free and fair elections:
Listen closely to the tape. Play it again and again if you fail to catch the
significance the first time. Four days after the riot on Capitol Hill, the
Republican House Minority Leader wasn’t trying to blame some mysterious “Antifa”
crew for the chaos. He wasn’t fuming about a stolen election. He was hoping that
the man who fanned the flames of insurrection would resign. And he didn’t want
to have to talk with Trump about getting a pardon from Vice President Mike Pence,
if Mr. Pence were suddenly thrust into the presidential role.
Put
yourself in McCarthy’s place – I mean before he starts lying. He believes the
leader of his party, and the President of the United States, should resign.
And he knows Trump may need a pardon.
When President
Richard M. Nixon resigned in disgrace on August 8, 1974, he knew he had lost the
support of his own party members in Congress, not just Democrats who had worked
hard to uncover the truth. He knew he was going to be impeached – and removed
from office. So he quit. One month later, he was pardoned by newly-installed
President Gerald Ford, putting a merciful end to a black chapter in U.S.
history, and ending Nixon’s career once and for all.
In the
Watergate era, when confronted with overwhelming evidence, Republicans of good
conscience faced up to a bitter truth. Their champion had repeatedly broken the
law, and Nixon had to go.
On January
10, 2021, McCarthy faced a similar situation. He knew Trump had no business holding
high office. He knew he should go. Only this was not the Watergate Era. Nor was
this the Grand Old Party of the past, a party that stood proudly for conservative
principles and values.
The Trumplicans
are a party of cowards – McCarthy – McConnell – Rep. Jim Jordan, Senator
Lindsey Graham, and so many others. For a brief moment, that day, McCarthy felt
the tug of conscience and honor. A light of truth flickered in his mind – but
in days ahead he snuffed it out.
On tape, on
that fateful day, it sounded like the nation might have hope. McCarthy
continued:
 |
"Again, the only discussion I would have with him is that I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation you should resign. Um, I mean that would be my take, but I don't think he would take it. But I don't know." |
That’s what
he said, speaking the truth, four days after the riot. The Times says they
have more tape. “What he did is
unacceptable,” McCarthy added, but not on this tape, referring to the president
who had stoked the fire.
“Nobody can defend that and nobody should defend it.”
Sen.
McConnell’s cowardice is equally glaring. Reporters quote him, shortly after
the attack, telling Republican allies, with a hint of relief, that, “The
Democrats are going to take care of the son of a bitch for us.” He told
supporters that he expected members of the party to help pass articles of
impeachment, noting, “If this isn’t impeachable, I don’t know what is.”
Unfortunately,
the GOP failed in the end. Mitch and most Republican senators lost their nerve.
McCarthy went to Mar-a-Lago to grovel and grin. In February 2021, with many
police officers battered by the mob still hospitalized, McConnell was asked in
a Fox News interview if, should Trump run again in 2024, he would support him.
“Absolutely,”
the coward said.
*
“I think there’s two people Putin pays.”
NOR SHOULD
WE FORGET, this was not the first time Rep. McCarthy was caught on tape,
speaking a critical truth.
In June
2016, when it looked unlikely that Trump would win the presidency, McCarthy offered
the kind of honest assessment this liberal blogger might have made. “I think
there’s two people Putin pays,” McCarthy told a gathering of fellow Republican
lawmakers, “Rohrabacher and Trump.”
Rep. Dana
Rohrabacher was sometimes mocked in the press with the identifier, (R-Moscow),
and labeled “Russia’s favorite congressman.”
In any
case, the Washington Post soon had the story and printed it. McCarthy
was just as quick six years ago to deny the truth.
But the free
press – doing its job, which is to hold the powerful to account – said, we’ve
got tapes.
McCarthy
replied, in essence: “Okay, I said it. But I was joking.”
It was a
joke – and the joke was on all of us, and on this great nation, and some of us,
more ill-informed, elected Donald J. Trump.
The problem
was that on tape, McCarthy was telling the truth. Democracy is not likely
to survive if he becomes Speaker of the House in 2022, if McConnell is returned
to Senate Majority Leader, and Trump wins a second term in 2024. McCarthy believed
Trump was in Putin’s pocket in 2016. He and McConnell knew the election wasn’t
stolen, and the attack on Capitol Hill was fomented by the president. They knew
Trump deserved to be ousted from office. What they lacked was the courage to put their careers at risk
to protect fari elections, the rule of law, and the U.S. Constitution.
It’s right
there on tape.
You just
have to listen.
BLOGGER’S NOTE: For a slightly more detailed description of what
happened, see my original post on McCarthy’s
comments about who Putin paid, and scroll down till you find the entry for
7/13/18, or click the link where I separated it out just for today.
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