On January 6 as violent domestic terrorists and insurrectionists were attacking the U.S. Capitol House Minority GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy called the White House.
A shouting match ensued after President Donald Trump told McCarthy the rioters cared more about the election than the top Republican did, CNN reports.
It did not go over well.
“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump told McCarthy, according to two GOP lawmakers briefed on the call.
CNN reports McCarthy, furious, “insisted that the rioters were Trump’s supporters and begged Trump to call them off.”
“Who the f–k do you think you are talking to?” McCarthy told Trump, the lawmakers say.
The details “provide critical insight into the President’s state of mind as rioters were overrunning the Capitol,” CNN adds. “Republican members of Congress said the exchange showed Trump had no intention of calling off the rioters even as lawmakers were pleading with him to intervene. Several said it amounted to a dereliction of his presidential duty.”
Trump “is not a blameless observer, he was rooting for them,” one Republican member of Congress said. “On January 13, Kevin McCarthy said on the floor of the House that the President bears responsibility and he does.”
Wolf Blitzer reports the call shows “Trump had no intention of calling the rioters off, even as McCarthy and other members begged him.”
Watch:
CNN’s Jaime Gangel offers even more details: