McCarthy denied saying he'd tell Trump to resign -- but Rachel Maddow has the tape

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Thursday fact-checked House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) after he denied pushing Donald Trump to resign.

"In the days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol building, the two top Republicans in Congress, Representative Kevin McCarthy and Senator Mitch McConnell, told associates they believed President Trump was responsible for inciting the deadly riot and vowed to drive him from politics," The New York Timesreported. "Mr. McCarthy went so far as to say he would push Mr. Trump to resign immediately: “I’ve had it with this guy,” he told a group of Republican leaders, according to an audio recording of the conversation obtained by The New York Times."

McCarthy denied the report.

"In a statement on Twitter, Mr. McCarthy called the reporting 'totally false and wrong.' His spokesman, Mark Bednar, denied that the Republican leader told colleagues he would urge Mr. Trump to leave office. “McCarthy never said he’d call Trump to say he should resign,” Mr. Bednar said," the newspaper reported.

Following McCarthy's denial, reporters Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin of The Times provided the tape to Maddow.

The host played it on air, "so that you can know that when Kevin McCarthy denied that this happened, he is not telling the truth."

The call was with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who on Thursday was announced as a 2022 Profile in Courage award recipient. The Kennedy family and John F. Kennedy Library Foundation have been giving out the award since 1989.

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