Trump says he 'never claimed responsibility' for Capitol attack
Former President Donald Trump on Friday denied that he had ever accepted any responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol complex, Politico reported.
Trump’s comments in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, while signaling a public détente amid a burgeoning controversy over leaked audio of Kevin McCarthy’s comments in the days after the insurrection, nevertheless put daylight between Trump and the House minority leader, who in a leaked Republican conference call said the former president told him he accepted some responsibility.
“No, that’s false. I never claimed responsibility,” Trump said in the interview at his Mar-a-Lago, Fla., residence, adding that his relationship with McCarthy remained solid following a phone call between the two Thursday evening.
In the leaked audio of the Jan. 10 phone call, first posted Thursday by The New York Times and aired on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show, McCarthy is heard saying he would advise Trump to resign. In a follow up audio release from a Republican conference call on Jan. 11, McCarthy is heard saying: “I asked him personally today, does he hold responsibility for what happened? … He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened and he’d need to acknowledge that.”