WASHINGTON ― House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) claimed Friday that he doesn’t remember calling White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson as a mob surrounded the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“I don’t recall talking to her that day,” McCarthy told reporters at a press conference.
It’s an extraordinary phone call to forget, in part because Hutchinson has testified that during the call, McCarthy accused her of lying to him.
At her June 28 appearance before the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, Hutchinson testified that McCarthy called her while she was standing behind the stage where President Donald Trump delivered his infamous “fight like hell” speech before rioters stormed the Capitol.
Under oath, Hutchinson said that McCarthy sounded “frustrated and angry” that Trump had said he would go to the Capitol with the mob of his supporters. Hutchinson said she was not aware of Trump’s intent at the time because she couldn’t hear Trump clearly from behind the stage.
“I was confused because I ― I didn’t know what the president had just said,” Hutchinson said. “He [McCarthy] then explained the president just said he’s marching to the Capitol.”
Hutchinson recalled McCarthy saying, “You told me this whole week you aren’t coming up here. Why would you lie to me?”
She said she denied having lied, and told McCarthy there were no plans to come to the Capitol. According to Hutchinson, McCarthy responded: “Well, he just said it on stage, Cassidy. Figure it out.”
Hutchinson said McCarthy warned her: “Don’t come up here.”
She continued: “He pressed a little bit more, believing me but I think frustrated that the president had said that. And we ended the phone conversation after that.”
The Secret Service ultimately refused to take Trump to the Capitol, according to Hutchinson’s recollection of conversations with White House officials that day.
On Friday, McCarthy said he recalled speaking that day to White House aides Dan Scavino and Jared Kushner, as well as to Trump.
“If I talked to [Hutchinson], I don’t remember it,” he said. “I don’t think I wanted a lot of people coming up to the Capitol. But I don’t remember the conversation.”
McCarthy also claimed he did not even watch the president’s speech ― contrary to Hutchinson’s sworn testimony.
“I didn’t watch the speech. I was working. So I didn’t see what was said,” McCarthy said. “I don’t remember having any conversations with her about coming to the Capitol ― the president coming to the Capitol. I just — I don’t recall any of that.”
When McCarthy finally got a hold of Trump that day, he asked him to call off the riot he’d incited, according to Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), who has repeatedly described McCarthy recounting the conversation with her.
“When McCarthy finally reached the president on January 6 and asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot, the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was antifa that had breached the Capitol,” Herrera Beutler said last year. “McCarthy refuted that and told the president that these were Trump supporters. That’s when, according to McCarthy, the president said: ‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.’”
In addition to forgetting his phone call with Hutchinson, McCarthy has also evidently forgotten that Trump incited the riot. Lately he’s been blaming “everybody in the country” for the attack.
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