McCarthy said Gaetz was ‘putting people in jeopardy’ with remarks post-1/ 6

Source: The Hill | April 26, 2022 | Rebecca Beitsch and Emily Brooks

McCarthy said Gaetz was ‘putting people in jeopardy’ with remarks post-Jan. 6

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) aired frustration with members of his own party for making disparaging comments about GOP colleagues, saying lawmakers like Reps. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) were “putting people in jeopardy.”

The comments, disclosed in newly released audio from The New York Times, show McCarthy frustrated by the tenor of some of those comments in the days after Jan. 6 — a feeling that appears to have faded as GOP lawmakers continue to disparage the two Republicans that sit on the committee investigating the riot.

“These members calling out other members, that stuff’s got to stop,” McCarthy can be heard saying in a Jan. 10 recording.

‘The tension is too high. The country is too crazy. I do not want to look back and think we caused something….I don’t want to play politics with any of that.” 

Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) also called out Gaetz, with another member chiming in to say he had made comments about Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), now the vice chair of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.

“This is serious stuff. It has to stop,” he says. “It’s potentially illegal what he’s doing.”

McCarthy agrees, saying Gaetz is “putting people in jeopardy.”

“And he doesn’t need to be doing this. We saw what people would do in the Capitol, you know, and these people came prepared with rope, with everything else.”

Later in the call the two go over other “incendiary remarks” from other lawmakers, noting remarks from Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) and others who spoke at the Jan. 6 rally.

“Today is the day that American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass,” Brooks said at the rally near the White House.

“If you think the president deserves to be impeached for his comments that almost even goes further than the president did,” McCarthy responds.

Scalise said that some members had brought up stripping Brooks of his committee assignments, “in the vein of Steve King.”

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