McCarthy and McConnell Privately Excoriated ‘Son of a B*tch’ Trump After Jan. 6, Actively Plotted His Ouster Per Report

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A new book claims House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) were furious with Donald Trump in the immediate aftermath of January 6th, and they had serious conversations about how the former president might be removed from office.

New York Times’ Alex Burns and Jonathan Martin previewed portions of This Will Not Pass, their upcoming book on the impact of America’s political divisions. The book claims that even though McCarthy and McConnell’s outrage with Trump faded over time, there was a point after the storming of the U.S. Capitol where they privately blasted the ex-president and considered completely breaking the GOP off from him.

“Mr. McCarthy went so far as to say he would push Mr. Trump to resign immediately: ‘I’ve had it with this guy,’ he told a group of Republican leaders,” the Times reported. “But within weeks both men backed off an all-out fight with Mr. Trump because they feared retribution from him and his political movement. Their drive to act faded fast as it became clear it would mean difficult votes that would put them at odds with most of their colleagues.”

The report acknowledges how McCarthy said Trump bore responsibility for the Capitol riot, only to make a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago and broker peace with Trump in the weeks that followed. Privately though, McCarthy reportedly said Trump’s conduct was “atrocious and totally wrong,” and he asked about invoking the 25th Amendment before discarding it as a viable option.

While McCarthy was described as fearful of the implications of Democratic efforts to have Trump impeached, he reportedly spoke to Republican leadership and said he would call Trump with a request for his resignation.

From the report:

“What he did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend that and nobody should defend it,” he told the group.

Mr. McCarthy said he would tell Mr. Trump of the impeachment resolution: “I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation you should resign.”

He acknowledged it was unlikely Mr. Trump would follow that suggestion.

The report goes on to say McCarthy hoped certain firebrands like Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R-CO) would lose their social media accounts like Trump did, though a McCarthy spokesman claimed he “never said that particular members should be removed from Twitter.” Meanwhile, McConnell was privately saying “If this isn’t impeachable, I don’t know what is,” which indicates he seriously believed Trump could be successfully impeached.

On Monday, Jan. 11, Mr. McConnell met over lunch in Kentucky with two longtime advisers, Terry Carmack and Scott Jennings. Feasting on Chick-fil-A in Mr. Jennings’s Louisville office, the Senate Republican leader predicted Mr. Trump’s imminent political demise.

“The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a bitch for us,” Mr. McConnell said, referring to the imminent impeachment vote in the House.

McConnell wound up voting to acquit Trump, even though he gave a speech right afterward where he ripped the ex-president’s behavior to shreds.

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