WASHINGTON: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Monday downplayed secretly recorded remarks he made about Donald Trump shortly after last year’s attack on the Capitol. He also said he never told the then-president that he should resign — something news organizations have not reported.
McCarthy’s comments were his first public remarks since The New York Times reported last week that on a Jan. 10, 2021, phone call with fellow Republicans, he said he was “seriously thinking” about telling Trump “he should resign.” McCarthy initially called that report “totally false and wrong.” The newspaper later released a recording of him making those remarks and it was played on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show.
The Times and others have not reported that McCarthy ever followed through and called Trump to urge him to step down. Critics have said the recordings and his denial of what he said show McCarthy to be a liar.
Trump was impeached by the House, but exonerated by the Senate, for encouraging a mob of his supporters who violently stormed the Capitol trying to disrupt Congress’ counting of the Electoral College votes in his November 2020 reelection defeat.
McCarthy, R-Calif., said Monday that a reporter — one of two Times reporters who have written a book that includes the recorded conversation — called him “the night before he released the book.”
“My understanding is he was saying, ‘Did I ask President Trump to resign?’ No, I never did, and that’s what I was answering,” McCarthy told reporters Monday in Eagle Pass, Texas, after touring the border with other Republicans.
Reports have not said that McCarthy definitively told Republicans that he would urge Trump to step down, only that he was thinking seriously about it.
McCarthy also said Monday that “I never did” tell GOP colleagues “that we’re going to ask” Trump to resign.
Before he took the question Monday about the audio, McCarthy and his GOP colleagues spent 30 minutes describing what they said are dangerous conditions at the border and blaming President Joe Biden for them.
“After all this, that’s what you want to ask?” he said when the reporter asked about the recording. He said people care more about border security and other issues.
McCarthy was asked directly in an interview earlier Monday with Fox News Channel whether he had lied when he said, before the audio’s release, that the Times’ reporting was false.
“No,” he said, saying he’d been asked if he’d called Trump and told him to resign.
He also told Fox he believes the episode won’t have “any impact at all” on his hopes of becoming speaker if, as seems likely, Republicans win House control in November’s elections.
So far McCarthy’s bid to become speaker seems on track. Trump, whose influence over the GOP is unrivaled, said after the audio’s release that he still likes McCarthy.
While most House Republicans have said little so far about whether they would back McCarthy for speaker, those who’ve spoken out have said they still support him.
McCarthy downplays remarks about Trump in secret recording
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McCarthy downplays remarks about Trump in secret recording
US Justice Department official eyes cases against Cuba leaders as Trump floats ‘friendly takeover’
- “Working group” formed to build cases against people connected to the Cuban government
- Trump’s has increasingly displayed aggressive stance against Cuba’s communist leadership
MIAMI: The top Justice Department prosecutor in Miami is considering criminal investigations of Cuban government officials, according to people familiar with the matter. The inquiry comes as President Donald Trump has raised the possibility of a “friendly takeover” of the communist-run island.
Jason Reding Quiñones, the US attorney for the Southern District of Florida, has created a “working group” that includes federal prosecutors and officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies to try to build cases against people connected to the Cuban government and its Communist Party, according to one of the people. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the effort.
It was not immediately clear which Cuban officials the office is targeting or what criminal charges prosecutors may be looking to bring.
The Justice Department said in a statement Friday that “federal prosecutors from across the country work every day to pursue justice, which includes efforts to combat transnational crime.”
The effort is taking place against the backdrop of Trump’s increasingly aggressive stance against Cuba’s communist leadership.
Emboldened by the US capture of Cuba’s close ally, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump last month said his administration was in high-level talks with officials in Havana to pursue “a friendly takeover” of the country. He repeated those claims this week, saying his attention would turn back to Cuba once the war with Iran winds down.
“They want to make a deal so bad,” Trump said of Cuba’s leadership.
While Cuba has faded from Washington’s radar as a major national security threat in recent decades, it remains a priority in the US Attorney’s office in Miami, whose political, economic and cultural life is dominated by Cuban-American exiles.
The FBI field office has a dedicated Cuba group that in 2024 was instrumental in the arrest of former US Ambassador Victor Manuel Rocha on charges of serving as a secret agent of Cuba stretching back to the 1970s.
In recent weeks, several Miami Republicans, in addition to Florida Sen. Rick Scott, have called on the Trump administration to reopen its criminal investigation into the 1996 shootdown of four planes operated by anti-communist exiles.
In a letter to Trump on Feb. 13, lawmakers including Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Gimenez highlighted decades-old news reports indicating that former President Raúl Castro — the head of Cuba’s military at the time — gave the order to shoot down the unarmed Cessna aircraft.
“We believe unequivocally that Raúl Castro is responsible for this heinous crime,” lawmakers wrote. “It is time for him to be brought to justice.”
While no indictment against Castro has been announced, Florida’s attorney general said this week that he would open a state-level investigation into the crime.
The Trump administration has also accused Cuba of not cooperating with American counterterrorism efforts, adding it alongside North Korea and Iran to a select few nations the US considers state sponsors of terrorism.
The designation stems from Cuba’s harboring of US fugitives and its refusal to extradite several Colombian rebel leaders while they were engaged in peace talks with the South American nation.
