Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) says he does not trust House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy after he claimed to not remember a phone call he had with Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson on Jan. 6.
Last month, Hutchinson testified under oath before the Jan. 6 committee about a phone call with McCarthy after Trump told a crowd of his supporters that he would march to the Capitol with them to protest the certification of the 2020 election.
“The president just said he’s marching to the Capitol. You told me this whole week you aren’t coming up here, why would you lie to me?’” McCarthy said, according to Hutchinson.
After Hutchinson told McCarthy that Trump was not going to the Capitol, he replied: “Well, he just said it on stage. Cassidy. Figure it out, don’t come up here.”
On Friday, McCarthy told reporters that he does not remember speaking to Hutchinson.
“I don’t recall talking to her that day … if I talked to her, I don’t remember it. If it was coming up here, I don’t think I wanted a lot of people coming up to the Capitol. But I don’t remember the conversation,” he said.
Asked about McCarthy’s comments on CNN Friday night Kinzinger said he does not “trust a thing” his party leader says.
“I mean, look, I don’t trust a thing Kevin McCarthy says,” Kinzinger said. “I’ll be honest with you. Sometime about a year or two ago, he made the decision that his only goal was to become Speaker of the House. And he’ll do whatever he has to do, and he thinks that siding with the insurrectionists is the way to get there. Maybe it will make him speaker.”
