Fox Host Confronts Kevin McCarthy on Demand BLM, Antifa Be Included in Capitol Riot Probe – Newsweek

House GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy insisted he won't support House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's calls for a bipartisan commission that focuses on the January 6 Capitol Riot without including a probe into Black Lives Matter and Antifa.

Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace repeatedly pressed McCarthy to clearly state whether he would support a probe that hones in on the deadly riot, noting that Republicans vehemently supported a tightly-focused probe into the 2012 Benghazi, Libya murder of four Americans. McCarthy repeatedly claimed he was the first congressional member to ask for a "9/11-style" commission on the riot, but he and GOP lawmakers want to see it broadly expanded to include unfounded ties to BLM and Antifa.

McCarthy's interview also saw him repeatedly avoid then ultimate deny reports that former President Donald Trump engaged in "witness tampering" during tense January 6 phone calls about the riot.

"Why not confine this committee to what happened on January 6 when there was an insurrection at the Capitol?" Wallace asked McCarthy, noting that in 2012 then-House GOP Leader John Boehner "set up the [Benghazi probe] and it was completely confined to the Benghazi murders."

"You've had political violence for the last year in this building, on Good Friday you had an officer killed for a political belief right on that Capitol as well, if you're now going to put a commission together, why wouldn't you look at all the problems to solve?" McCarthy said, referencing the April 2 killing of U.S. Capitol Police Officer William "Billy" Evans by a purported Nation of Islam member.

"I'm the one who asked for a commission, it's Speaker Pelosi who is trying to make it partisan. This is too important to negotiate in the press," McCarthy added, describing why he wants a broader probe that doesn't focus on the largely pro-Trump rioters who led the January 6 attacks.

Wallace also confronted McCarthy about his reported phone call with Trump during the January 6 insurrection, in which the then-president shamed him for not offering his support to the violent rioters. McCarthy dodged a direct answer several times before ultimately declining to relay exactly what was said between the two.

Trump reportedly said in the January 6 call, "Well Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are."

"Is that what President Trump said to you?" Wallace asked.

"What I talked to President Trump about, I was the first person to contact him when the riots were going on and he didn't see it, but he ended the call telling me he'll put something out to make sure to stop this. And that's what he did, he put a video out later. McCarthy said.

"Quite a lot later, and it was a very weak video," Wallace said, before pressing once again. "But I'm asking you specifically, did he say to you, 'I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are'?"

"No, listen, my conversations with the president are my conversations with the president," McCarthy said. "I engaged in the idea of making sure we could stop what was going on inside the Capitol at that moment in time and the president said he would help."

Wallace continued, "Has the president ever reached out to you, since that report came out, to discuss what you and he talked about in the January 6 phone call, and did you say to him, 'I can't, because we're under oath'?"

"That's never happened, never even close," McCarthy replied, acknowledging that such a conversation would be considered witness tampering. "We never had any conversation like that. I've never even heard that rumor until today."

Newsweek reached out to McCarthy's office for additional remarks about the Fox News Sunday interview.

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Fox Host Confronts Kevin McCarthy on Demand BLM, Antifa Be Included in Capitol Riot Probe - Newsweek