House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said days after the U.S. Capitol riot that then-President Donald Trump had admitted to him that he bore some responsibility for the violence that unfurled among his supporters on Jan. 6 last year.
“I say he has responsibility. He told me personally that he does have some responsibility. I think a lot of people do,” McCarthy said in a Jan. 12 interview with Bakersfield, California, radio station KERN that CNN’s “K-File” unearthed and released on Friday.
Listen to the audio here:
McCarthy reportedly made a similar claim about Trump taking responsibility for the riot in a Jan. 11 call to Republican lawmakers, per Reuters.
“I asked him personally today if he holds responsibility for what happened, if he feels bad about what happened. He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened,” the top House Republican reportedly said, although he’s since claimed he can’t recall saying it.
The resurfacing of the KERN interview audio is notable, given that Trump has never publicly admitted his role in inciting the storming of the Capitol (for which he was later impeached) and McCarthy has reasserted himself as a key Trump ally and refused to cooperate with the House select committee’s investigation into the riot.
Listen to McCarthy’s full interview on KERN Radio here:
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
