McCarthy Called Trump During Jan 6. Trump Took the Rioters' Side.

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The McCarthy-Trump call is significant not just for what Trump said, but for what McCarthy did next. In the immediate aftermath of January 6, McCarthy gave a House floor speech calling Trump directly responsible for the attack and saying he bore responsibility. He reportedly told colleagues he planned to call on Trump to resign. Then he flew to Mar-a-Lago. Then he spent two years protecting Trump from accountability, blocked the January 6th select committee at every turn, defied a congressional subpoena rather than testify, and ultimately became Speaker of the House with Trump's endorsement.

The Call and What Was Said.

The call occurred on January 6, 2021, while the Capitol was actively under attack. McCarthy called Trump from his Capitol office and implored him to call off the rioters. According to Republican Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler, who later disclosed what McCarthy had told her about the call, Trump responded to McCarthy's plea by saying something to the effect that the people breaching the Capitol were more angry about the election results than McCarthy was. McCarthy reportedly responded: "Who the f--- do you think you are talking to?" The call was described by Herrera Beutler in a statement she released in February 2021.

McCarthy initially denied the account. When the New York Times reported in January 2022 — based on interviews with McCarthy — that he had told Republican colleagues Trump had said he bore "some responsibility" for the attack, McCarthy denied saying that too. Then two journalists, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, released an audio recording of McCarthy telling Republican leadership exactly that, in a call from January 10, 2021. In the recording, McCarthy also described telling colleagues he planned to call on Trump to resign and that he planned to reach out to Biden. The recording confirmed that McCarthy had lied about his own statements.

What McCarthy Said on the House Floor.

On January 13, 2021 — the day of Trump's second impeachment — McCarthy gave a floor speech saying: "The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters." He did not vote to impeach. He then flew to Mar-a-Lago on January 28, 2021, appeared in a smiling photo with Trump, and spent the remainder of Trump's political comeback actively working to restore his standing within the party. He blocked Republican participation in a bipartisan January 6th commission. He defied a subpoena from the January 6th select committee. He was rewarded with Trump's endorsement for Speaker.

The Arc of the Story.

The McCarthy story is ultimately about what political self-interest looks like when institutional loyalty collapses. In the immediate hours and days after January 6, McCarthy privately and publicly acknowledged Trump's responsibility. Then he calculated that the Republican base remained with Trump, that his own path to the speakership ran through Mar-a-Lago, and he reversed course — lying about what he had said, lying about what Trump had said, and spending years obstructing accountability for an event he had initially described accurately.

He got his speakership. He was then removed from it by his own caucus in October 2023 — the first Speaker removed by a motion to vacate in US history — in a revolt led partly by the MAGA members whose loyalty to Trump he had spent years cultivating. He announced his resignation from Congress shortly after.