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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., denounced House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Sunday as “a liar and a traitor” after audio leaked in which he said he would call on former President Trump to resign after the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
“I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation you should resign,” McCarthy explained what he would tell Trump in the Jan. 10, 2021 audio recording published Thursday by the Times, referring to the impeachment resolution.
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“Kevin McCarthy is a liar and a traitor,” Warren told co-anchor Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union” when asked about the recording.
“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,” she continued.
“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,” she went on, adding, “Shame on Kevin McCarthy.”
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., talks on the phone before the start of the Senate Democrats weekly policy lunch at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 14, 2021. (REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz)
According to the recording, the Republican leader said that it was not likely that Trump would listen to his suggestion and that nobody can defend Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 “and nobody should defend it.”
McCarthy also called Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 “atrocious and totally wrong” in a Jan. 8 call with Republicans, and reportedly floated the idea of getting certain lawmakers banned from social media, according to the Times’ report.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., responds to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 3, 2021, about the behavior of Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., and her repeated “anti-Muslim” attacks against Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
McCarthy rebutted the Times reporting as “totally false and wrong” in a Twitter statement released hours before the recordings were published.
McCarthy and Trump reportedly spoke on the phone after the audio leaked and remain on good terms, a source with knowledge of the conversation confirmed to Fox News Digital.
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McCarthy’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fox News’ Houston Keene contributed to this report.