Kevin McCarthy flunks GOP watchdog group's accountability project

The Republican Accountability Project, an anti-Trump conservative group has gone from holding top GOP lawmakers such as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy accountable on social media to launching a new "scorecard" website that grades GOP members on their commitment to democracy.

This article originally appeared at Salon.

"The Republican Accountability Project has created what it's calling a 'GOP Democracy Report Card,' which assigns grades to Republican members of Congress ranging from an 'A,' which the group describes as excellent, to an 'F,' which it describes as very poor," CNN reported on Monday morning.

The group is led by longtime Republican operatives (and Trump critics) Bill Kristol and Sarah Longwell, along with former Trump administration official Olivia Troye. It has already doled out numerous failing grades to prominent GOP lawmakers, including Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. "Only 14 Republicans in Congress received an 'A,' the highest possible grade. In contrast, more than 100 Republicans received an 'F,' the lowest possible grade," CNN further noted.

The group's report card grading of GOP lawmakers considers how legislators voted on various issues pertaining to the 2020 election, along with the veracity of their statements about the 2020 election results and whether they voted to convince former President Trump during his second impeachment trial. "Actions have consequences and this is part of us working to hold these individuals accountable and not let them get away with it as time passes and they try to move past it and paint it under a different light," Troye told CNN. The former Trump official added the website can be used to track "who have been actively trying to do what's right for the country."

On Sunday, McCarthy was faced with a stringent line of questions from Sunday Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, who pressed the House minority leader over his phone call with Trump while the Capitol riot was in progress on Jan. 6. Wallace began the segment with Trump's reported words during that call: "Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are." Things grew ever tenser after that.

McCarthy then fired back, claiming he was the "first person" to get in touch with Trump on Jan. 6. "I was the first person to contact him when the riots were going on," McCarthy said. "When he ended the call, he was telling me he will put something out to make sure to stop this. And that's what he did. He put a video out later."

Responding to McCarthy's comment about the video, the Fox anchor pointed out that Trump's video was rather weak and came a bit too late to stop the mayhem.

Rather than directly addressing his call with Trump, the House Republican leader dodged a myriad of questions from Wallace on the topic. "My conversations with the president are my conversations with the president," McCarthy said. "I engaged in the idea that we could stop what was going on inside the Capitol at that moment in time; the president said he would help," he added. McCarthy further insisted he had done nothing wrong, and said he was unbothered by the prospect of ongoing investigations into what occurred in Washington on that winter day.