Trump denies Kevin McCarthy claims about angry Jan. 6 phone call with withering two-word response

Donald Trump denied that House minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) had called him on Jan. 6 to put a stop to the U.S. Capitol riot.

Republican lawmakers say McCarthy told them that he insisted the rioters were Trump supporters and demanded the former president call them off, and the California Republican claimed that Trump defended the insurrectionist mob.

"Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are," Trump said, according to McCarthy.

But Trump says the call never happened and that McCarthy didn't challenge him over the insurrection, according to the new book, "This Will Not Pass," by New York Times reporters Alex Burns and Jonathan Martin.

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"He wouldn't say that," Trump said, according to the book.

The reporters asked Trump why McCarthy would tell others that he had clashed with the president in what he described as an expletive-laced phone call, and the former president expressed contempt for the GOP leader.

"Inferiority complex," Trump said.

Also today, Bulwark columnist Amanda Carpenter called Minority Leader McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Trump's "garbage men." The former speechwriter for Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz is out today with a harsh critique of McCarthy and McConnell's political gamesmanship in the wake of the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

In private the two Republican leaders initially denounced what they saw as Trump's role in inciting - and then not acting to quell - the riot that sought to prevent Joe Biden's rightful election as president. She notes how McCarthy, after denying last week that he considered telling Trump to resign the presidency, had to change his story about his views on Trump's culpability.