House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) engaged in an argument after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection in which he yelled at Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) about protecting Republicans from former President Trump, making her cry, The Washington Post reported.
The Post reported that McCarthy and Herrera Beutler met in his office on Feb. 25 of last year, during which he said he was “taking all the heat” to protect people from Trump and that he alone was holding the Republican Party together.
The report is based on an excerpt of a new book from Post reporter Karoun Demirjian and Politico reporter Rachel Bade, “Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump,” which is set to be released next week.
“I have been working with Trump to keep him from going after Republicans like you and blowing up the party and destroying all our work!” McCarthy reportedly told Herrera Beutler.
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Herrera Beutler started crying and apologized for not notifying him in advance that she confirmed to media organizations that McCarthy called Trump on Jan. 6 to urge him to tell the rioters to leave the Capitol.
McCarthy told her that she should have come to him and that “this is no way to thank me.”
“What did you want me to do? Lie?” Herrera Beutler said. “I did what I thought was right.”
McCarthy and Herrera Beutler denied the report in a joint statement to the Post, saying that they know it is wrong because they were the only two in the room for the conversation.
“Beyond multiple inaccuracies — it is dramatized to fit an on-screen adaptation, not to serve as a document of record,” they said.
Demirjian and Bade said in the book that their reporting was based on conversations with a person who was in the room during the argument and multiple lawmakers who said they heard an account of the argument from McCarthy.
“McCarthy’s tirade against Herrera Beutler was just the start of what would become a GOP-wide campaign to whitewash the details of what happened on January 6 in the aftermath of the second impeachment,” they wrote.
Trump staunchly opposed the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, backing primary challengers to those who ran for reelection. Most of those who voted to impeach, including Herrera Beutler, were either defeated in their primary or chose not to run for reelection.