Brunswick Beacon, 04.28.22
Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has a problem. Last week the New York Times revealed McCarthy’s private, damning reaction to Trump’s attempted coup. McCarthy called the report “totally false and wrong.” But, when a smoking-gun recording of his remarks was released, McCarthy was shown to be a bald-faced liar in a way that would have done Richard Nixon proud.
But McCarthy’s problem is not that he lied. That’s as newsworthy as the Pope being Catholic. McCarthy’s real problem is he told the truth.
McCarthy can be heard on the recording telling Republican leaders, including then Conference Chair Liz Cheney, that Trump’s conduct was “atrocious and totally wrong.” He blamed Trump for “inciting people” to attack the Capitol.
“What he did is unacceptable,” McCarthy said. “Nobody can defend that and nobody should defend it. I’ve had it with this guy.” McCarthy said he would tell Trump that he would be impeached and “you should resign.”
McCarthy saw what we saw: Trump incited a mob to prevent the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history. And he told the truth—defending democracy meant Trump had to go. But McCarthy wants to be Speaker of the House, and for that he needs Trump’s mob. So McCarthy went to Mar-a-Lago and kissed Trump’s ring. When Cheney said publicly what McCarthy said in private, Republicans ousted her from leadership.
The GOP’s cover-up proves that, for political gain, it will divide Americans and defend what McCarthy said “nobody should” defend. Republicans will invent phony bogeymen like Critical Race Theory, violate Disney’s First Amendment rights, and smear mothers like Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow as pedophile enablers to distract from Trump’s crimes.
Republicans do all this because they saw what we saw, Trump’s premeditated plot to destroy democracy. And they plan to profit by helping him succeed.
Art Hill
Southport