When asked by CNN’s Manu Raju why it was acceptable for him to support Trump’s efforts to overthrow the presidential election in Congress, but criticize Democrats for doing the same in a disputed dispute for the US House in Iowa, McCarthy repeatedly rejected the idea that he was trying to overturn the election at all.
“You are saying something that is not true,” said the California Republican when Raju said Trump had tried to overturn the election results in Congress and McCarthy supported that effort.
McCarthy’s explanation goes against reality. Trump tried to pressure Congress to annul the election and McCarthy was not concerned about that. He also supported a Texas lawsuit to invalidate millions of votes and ultimately voted in favor of overturning the electoral results of two states during the polls that followed the January 6 uprising on Capitol Hill.
The exchange takes place at a time when McCarthy seeks to maintain a relationship with Trump while running a party whose establishment fears to allow the former president to dictate the Republican path forward. McCarthy met with Trump in January to discuss the strategy to win a majority in the House in next year’s midterm elections.
Sources told CNN at the time that Trump was focusing his political energy on targeting Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the House’s third Republican, who voted for her impeachment earlier that month.
McCarthy declined to say whether he endorsed Trump’s efforts to annul the election and did not say why he did not speak out against those efforts at the time if he did not support them.
“I’m not Donald Trump,” McCarthy told Raju.
McCarthy tried to argue that he was opposing only two states, Arizona and Pennsylvania, which, he said, would not have changed the outcome of the election. McCarthy said he maintained his support for the Texas lawsuit that tried to overturn the election results, saying to Raju: “The answer is yes and you know why, because that’s where you go: to the courts.”
CNN’s Ali Main, Michael Warren, Devon Sayers, Jamie Gangel and Ryan Nobles contributed to this report.
