" />

The Moderate Voice

An Internet hub with domestic and international news, analysis, original reporting, and popular features from the left, center, indies, centrists, moderates, and right


You are here: Home / Featured / CNN: Trump Defended Rioters To McCarthy During Capitol Attack: Refused McCarthy’s Plea to Call Off Attack

CNN: Trump Defended Rioters To McCarthy During Capitol Attack: Refused McCarthy’s Plea to Call Off Attack

by Leave a Comment

Former President Donald Trump defended rioters storming Congress on January 6 in a shouting match phone call in which Trump refused McCarthy’s pleas to call the pro-Trump mob off, CNN reports.

This came after day’s Trump Senate impeachment trial came to a close. The key takeaway: the Republican leadership did indeed know that this was a “riot” linked to and influenced by Trump. Some excerpts by the report, which had Republican sources.

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.

McCarthy insisted that the rioters were Trump’s supporters and begged Trump to call them off.

Trump’s comment set off what Republican lawmakers familiar with the call described as a shouting match between the two men. 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.

And:

The newly revealed details of the call, described to CNN by multiple Republicans briefed on it, provide critical insight into the President’s state of mind as rioters were overrunning the Capitol. The existence of the call and some of its details were first reported by Punchbowl News and discussed publicly by McCarthy.
The Republican members of Congress said the exchange 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.

….”He is not a blameless observer, he was rooting for them,” a Republican member of Congress said. “On January 13, Kevin McCarthy said on the floor of the House that the President bears responsibility and he does.”

Speaking to the President from inside the besieged Capitol, McCarthy pressed Trump to call off his supporters and engaged in a heated disagreement about who comprised the crowd. Trump’s comment about the would-be insurrectionists caring more about the election results than McCarthy did was first mentioned by Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Republican from Washington state, in a town hall earlier this week, and was confirmed to CNN by Herrera Beutler and other Republicans briefed on the conversation.

…As senators prepare to determine Trump’s fate, multiple Republicans thought the details of the call were important to the proceedings because they believe it paints a damning portrait of Trump’s lack of action during the attack. At least one of the sources who spoke to CNN took detailed notes of McCarthy’s recounting of the call.

Trump and McCarthy did not respond to requests for comment.

It took Trump several hours after the attack began to eventually encourage his supporters to “go home in peace” — a tweet that came at the urging of his top aides.

Will this change may GOP votes? Most analysts say it is highly unlikely. Most GOP Senators will vote against convicting Trump, using what many call the “fig leaf” justification that the trial is unconstitutional since Trump has left office — a contention rejected by most legal experts, including leading Republican ones.

photo credit: Blinkofanaye Capitol Jan 6 via photopin (license)

For more discussion on this story GO HERE.