Leaked Trump impeachment tape puts McCarthy in bind as he chases speaker's gavel

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is drawing fire from Republican lawmakers after being caught in a lie about telling colleagues he considered calling on then-President Donald Trump to resign after the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.

McCarthy, a California Republican in line to become House speaker if his party wins the majority in November, is also vulnerable to criticism that, as shown on the tapes, he would have liked to see social media companies ban certain conservative firebrands from their platforms. Social media companies have in recent months come under heavy criticism by House Republicans for alleged bias against conservatives.

On Thursday, McCarthy issued a statement denying a New York Times report that McCarthy was critical of Trump, which runs counter to the fealty the House minority leader usually shows to Trump publicly. The revelations come from the forthcoming book, This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future, by Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin. The authors appeared Thursday on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show and played an audio recording of McCarthy on Jan. 10, 2021, discussing impeachment scenarios with Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, at the time the third-ranking in House Republican leadership.