Rep. Liz Cheney on Friday denied recording or leaking audio from a phone call that appears to show House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy saying he would tell then-President Donald Trump to resign after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
A portion of that call, dated Jan. 10, 2021, aired Thursday night on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.” Hours earlier, McCarthy denied saying he would tell Trump to step down.
In the audio clip, the California Republican can be heard telling Cheney, R-Wyo., that he believed Trump would be impeached in the House and possibly convicted in the Senate after the Jan. 6 riot.
“The only discussion I would have with him is that I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation you should resign,” McCarthy said, according to the recording.
Later Friday, news outlets aired a separate audio clip of McCarthy from Jan. 11, 2021. In it, McCarthy tells top House Republicans that Trump admitted he bears some responsibility for the Capitol riot.
“What he did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend that, and nobody should defend it,” McCarthy said, according to the latest recording.
The remarks came days after a mob of Trump’s supporters, spurred by the then-president’s false claims that widespread fraud cost him the 2020 election, stormed the Capitol and disrupted lawmakers’ confirmation of President Joe Biden‘s victory.
A spokesperson for Cheney, one of two Republicans on the House select committee probing the Capitol riot, said in a statement Friday morning that the congresswoman “did not record or leak the tape and does not know how the reporters got it.”
“The select committee has asked Kevin McCarthy to speak with us about these events but he has so far declined,” the spokesperson said.
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