Warren on McCarthy tapes: ‘Kevin McCarthy is a liar and a traitor’

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Sunday said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) “is a liar and a traitor” as he comes under fire for audio recordings that showed him supporting the resignation of former President Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

The New York Times reported this past week that McCarthy, during a call with House GOP leadership colleagues on Jan. 10, 2021, said he thought Trump should resign. The minority leader called the reporting “totally false.”

Soon after, however, audio of the call was released showing McCarthy making the remarks he denied shortly before.

Asked on Sunday what her reaction was to the unfolding situation, Warren slammed the minority leader, calling the circumstances “outrageous.”

“Kevin McCarthy is a liar and a traitor. This is outrageous. And that is really the illness that pervades the Republican leadership right now, that they say one thing to the American public and something else in private,” Warren told co-anchor Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“They understand that it is wrong what happened, an attempt to overthrow our government. And that the Republicans instead want to continue to try to figure out how to make 2020 election different instead of spending their energy on how it is that we go forward in order to build an economy, in order to make this country work better for the people who sent us to Washington. Shame on Kevin McCarthy,” she added.

Some GOP lawmakers have knocked McCarthy following the release of the audio recordings, including Reps. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) and Matt Gaetz (Fla.).

McCarthy on Friday, however, said his relationship with Trump remains intact. The minority leader said he spoke to the former president twice that day and had a “good conversation” about the audio recordings.

He also emphasized that he “never asked President Trump to resign” and “never thought he should resign.”

Additionally, Trump told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that he “didn’t like the call” McCarthy made with his GOP colleagues but said they are still on good terms.

The audio recordings in question were obtained by the Times’s Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns for their upcoming book “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future.”

The Hill reached out to McCarthy for comment.