It goes without saying that most congressional Republicans know the Big Lie is just that—an absurd fabrication spun from the gossamer remains of their party’s perpetual pants pyre. Donald Trump was always going to lie about the 2020 election results. It’s what he does. He lied about the election he won, for God’s sake. And he lied about the results of the 2016 Iowa caucus, which he claimed Ted Cruz “stole.” And while it’s hard to imagine Cruz winning any vote that doesn’t determine who on the lifeboat gets eaten first, Donald Trump simply did not win the 2016 Iowa caucus. (Though it might be fun for the party to go back and relitigate the contest just to see what Cruz does.)
And yet dozens of rank-and-file Republicans—horrified by what Trump might do if they tell the truth about the 2020 election—have decided to gaslight their constituents with tales of Donald Trump’s eternal victimhood. I’m sure a few congressional Republicans actually believe this absurd lie—people like Louie Gohmert, whose brain should be donated to the Johns Hopkins Department of Brain Sciences so they can slice it up and use it to even out the legs on their rec room pool table. (After he dies or right now—it makes no difference to Louie.)
But among those who almost certainly understand that Donald Trump actually lost the 2020 election is House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who was against the Jan. 6 insurrection when he thought he might be murdered but is somehow no longer bothered by it. He was eventually so unperturbed, in fact, he flew to Mar-a-Lago three weeks after that deadly day to kiss the ring of the coup leader and pose for that infamous photo in which he and Trump appear to be locked in an epic grudge match over who can look like they’ve shit their pants more recently.
In other words, McCarthy is just a lying fucking goofball, and he knows it better than anyone.
Anyone, that is, except Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who first witnessed McCarthy’s dishonesty up close and personal more than a decade ago.
Monday, appearing on the “Pod Save America” podcast with hosts Tommy Vietor and Jon Favreau, Schiff told an incredible story about McCarthy, who apparently was an early adherent of the “just make shit up” philosophy that Trump eventually perfected.
FAVREAU: “Did Kevin McCarthy really admit to you that he lied to the press about something you said?”
SCHIFF: “Yes, yeah. I mean, everything I ever needed to know about him I learned on a plane. This was 2010, and we were seated together on United Airlines flying back to the capital. I really don’t think I’d spoken two words to him up until that time—not for any dislike, but his district is far from mine, we just never had any opportunity to speak. And we had that kind of conversation you have on a plane before the movie starts and you can escape. It was a total nothingburger—who was going to win the midterms, and I said I thought the economy was going to be good and we were going to win the midterms, and he thought the Republicans were going to win the midterms ...”
VIETOR: “Got you there. 2010, that was a tough one for us.”
SCHIFF: “Yeah, his forecasting was better than mine, that’s true. But, you know, the movie starts and that’s the end of the conversation. We get to D.C., we go our separate ways. I don’t remember what his position in the Republican Party at the time was, but he gave a press briefing that night, unbeknownst to me, and he told the press that I had said that the Republicans were going to win the election, which was absurd and completely false … literally the opposite. Well, I didn’t know about this that night because I had to wait until the newspaper came out in the morning to even know that he’d given a briefing. So, you know, one of the Hill papers comes out in the morning and it quotes McCarthy as saying, ‘Everybody knows Republicans are going to win the election. I sat next to Adam Schiff on the airplane last night and even he admitted the Republicans were going to win the midterms ...”
FAVREAU: “Just lying for lying’s sake.”
SCHIFF: “Oh, it was breathtaking, and I made a beeline for the House floor and went right up to him in the middle of the House floor and I said, ‘Kevin, I would have thought if we were having a private conversation it was a private conversation, but if it wasn’t, you know you told the press the exact opposite of what I said.’ And he looks at me and he says, ‘Yeah, I know, Adam, but you know how it goes.’ And I’m like, ‘No, Kevin, I don’t know how it goes. You just make shit up and that’s how you operate, because that’s not how I operate.’ But that is how he operates, and in that respect he was really made for a moment like this when his party doesn’t believe the truth matters at all, you make up your own alternate facts, and you say anything, you do anything to get power, to keep power. And in that sense, McCarthy and Trump were really made for each other.”
And here I thought Trump and Melania were made for each other. Or maybe it was Trump and Marla Maples. Or Trump and Nosferatu. It’s hard to keep up.
But, yeah, Trump didn’t exactly break new ground on the GOP gaslighting front. They’ve always been shameless liars—Trump was just a bit more shameless and prodigious than they were used to. And now, sadly, we all get to reap the whirlwind.
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