The one moment that defined (and doomed) Kevin McCarthy

On "My Kevin."

(Donald Trump and Kevin McCarthy)

Kevin McCarthy announced Wednesday that he will resign at the end of the year, narrowing the already paper-thin House majority and officially closing a political career that effectively ended when he was removed as Speaker of the House earlier this fall.

It wasn’t terribly unexpected — McCarthy had hinted at being done with Congress in recent weeks — but, still, it is a moment.

Which got me to thinking more about moments — and McCarthy. And the moment that defined his speakership — and doomed it.

Cast your mind back to the days immediately following the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

There was real anger among Republicans about not just the insurrection but Donald Trump’s role in it. And McCarthy was at the center of it.

At issue was a phone call McCarthy placed to Trump even as the riot was occurring on January 6. Here’s how CNN reported on the call:

In an expletive-laced phone call with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy while the US Capitol was under attack, then-President Donald Trump said the rioters cared more about the election results than McCarthy did.

“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump said, according to lawmakers who were briefed on the call afterward by McCarthy.

McCarthy insisted that the rioters were Trump’s supporters and begged Trump to call them off.

Trump’s comment set off what Republican lawmakers familiar with the call described as a shouting match between the two men. A furious McCarthy told the then-President the rioters were breaking into his office through the windows, and asked Trump, “Who the f–k do you think you are talking to?” according to a Republican lawmaker familiar with the call.

Not great!

McCarthy was clearly still pissed off at Trump when he went to the House floor on January 13, 2021 to speak about the riot.

“The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters,” McCarthy said at the time. “He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump.”

It was part of a broader condemnation of Trump happening among Congressional Republicans. On the same day McCarthy spoke out against Trump on the House floor, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, sent a letter to his colleagues making clear that he was open to convicting Trump for his role in January 6.

“I have not made a final decision on how I will vote and I intend to listen to the legal arguments when they are presented to the Senate,” wrote McConnell.

It seemed that, finally, the Trump fever was breaking among the GOP. That January 6 had been the final straw, the thing that revealed Trump’s true nature to a party who had been trying to ignore it for the past four years.

Then Kevin McCarthy went to Mar-a-Lago.

Just 15 days after demanding that “these facts require immediate action by President Trump,” McCarthy traveled to the president’s Florida mansion to, well, make amends.

The meeting produced this statement from Trump’s PAC:

They discussed many topics, number one of which was taking back the House in 2022. President Trump’s popularity has never been stronger than it is today, and his endorsement means more than perhaps any endorsement at any time.

And this one from McCarthy:

Today, President Trump committed to helping elect Republicans in the House and Senate in 2022. A Republican majority will listen to our fellow Americans and solve the challenges facing our nation. Democrats, on the other hand, have only put forward an agenda that divides us — such as impeaching a President who is now a private citizen and destroying blue-collar energy jobs. For the sake of our country, the radical Democrat agenda must be stopped.

The words were, honestly, secondary. It was the picture — the one at the top of this post — that mattered the most: Trump and McCarthy, standing side by side and smiling.

The message was crystal clear: McCarthy was (back) on board with Trump. His criticism of how Trump handled January 6 was an aberration. And Trump, ever-magnanimous, had accepted McCarthy’s apology for stepping out of line. The deed was done. The ring had been kissed.

(Sidebar: McCarthy, in an attempt to rewrite history, has cast that trip as a rescue mission. Asked by Liz Cheney about going to Mar-a-Lago, McCarthy responded: “They’re really worried. Trump’s not eating, so they asked me to come see him.” Riiiiight.)

But, it also said more than that too. Because we knew that McCarthy wanted to be the next Speaker of the House (if Republicans took the majority in 2022). And his decision to make nice with Trump was a signal that he had determined that there was NO path to that perch without the backing of the former president.

In short: This was still Donald Trump’s party. Even after the 2020 election. And January 6. And the chatter that — maybe just maybe — his grip was slipping.

McCarthy’s trip to Mar-a-Lago ended all that talk. The following month, McConnell — as well as the bulk of Senate Republicans — voted against convicting Trump and barring him from holding office again. Trump was ascendant. Again.

For a while, it appeared as though McCarthy’s devil’s bargain had paid off. Republicans did take the majority in the fall of 2022. And McCarthy was elected Speaker — albeit it after 16 votes — thanks, at least in part, to Trump haranguing members of the Freedom Caucus, who were withholding their votes from the Californian.

“REPUBLICANS, DO NOT TURN A GREAT TRIUMPH INTO A GIANT & EMBARRASSING DEFEAT,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in the midst of the Speakership fight. “IT’S TIME TO CELEBRATE, YOU DESERVE IT. Kevin McCarthy will do a good job, and maybe even a GREAT JOB — JUST WATCH!”

But, even in that victory, the seeds of McCarthy’s demise were taking root. As part of his efforts to placate the Trump wing of the House GOP, McCarthy agreed that a single member of the majority could bring up a motion to vacate the speakership.

Which is exactly what Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, perhaps Trump’s most high profile ally in the House, did this fall. And this time, Trump refused to ride to McCarthy’s aid.

As the Washington Post later reported:

During a phone call with McCarthy weeks after his historic Oct. 3 removal as House speaker, Trump detailed the reasons he had declined to ask Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and other hard-right lawmakers to back off their campaign to oust the California Republican from his leadership position, according to people familiar with the exchange who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose a private conversation.

During the call, Trump lambasted McCarthy for not expunging his two impeachments and not endorsing him in the 2024 presidential campaign, according to people familiar with the conversation.

“F--- you,” McCarthy claimed to have then told Trump, when he rehashed the call later to other people in two separate conversations, according to the people. A spokesperson for McCarthy said that he did not swear at the former president and that they have a good relationship. A spokesperson for Trump declined to comment.

It might have been tragic (or at least sad) — if it wasn’t so utterly predictable.

Zero back in on those days and weeks after January 6. McCarthy was clearly shocked and appalled by Trump’s behavior. He believed Trump played a role in what happened on January 6 — and had a responsibility to work on cooling tensions in its wake.

Then that principled stand ran into raw political reality. McCarthy realized — at some point between January 13 and January 28 — that the party base (and its cadre of elected officials in the House) weren’t going to turn their backs on Trump because of January 6. If anything, they were doubling down on their support for him.

Which left McCarthy with a choice: Stand on principle or cave for politics. The latter option virtually ensured he would never be Speaker. The latter kept the speakership as a live option but meant abandoning what he actually believed.

We know how the story ended. McCarthy put politics over principle — making a deal with an utterly transactional and disloyal person. That decision wrote McCarthy into the history books — he is the first Speaker ever to be removed from the job — but certainly not in the way he hoped.

Moments — and how we react to them — define us. And McCarthy’s Mar-a-Lago trip will define him. In the worst way possible.