‘THIS COUNTRY IS TOO CRAZY’

McCarthy Said Gaetz Was ‘Putting People in Jeopardy’ With Post-Jan. 6 Rhetoric

In audio obtained by The New York Times, the House Minority Leader said party leaders couldn’t “put up with that type of shit.” Then, of course, he learned to put up with it.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) vented his anger about his colleagues’ inflammatory comments surrounding the Capitol insurrection on a number of GOP leadership calls in the days immediately following it, saying that they couldn’t “put up with that type of shit.” (Spoiler: They did, in fact, end up putting up with that type of shit.) In a series of audio clips obtained by The New York Times and published Tuesday, McCarthy expressed concerns that, in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack, party members like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) were making potential targets of fellow lawmakers who disagreed on the outcome of the presidential election. “He’s putting people in jeopardy,” McCarthy said on one call, referring to Gaetz. In a Jan. 10 call, along with other leaders like Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), McCarthy criticized colleagues like Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) for their comments surrounding the election, saying that they had to “start paying attention to what they say.” He elaborated: “The country is too crazy. I do not want to look back and think we caused something or we missed something and someone got hurt. I don’t want to play politics with any of that.”