House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) ran from a reporter on Wednesday when asked the Republican National Committee‘s use of “legitimate political discourse” to describe the events of last year’s Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
The next day, McCarthy stopped to give a more fulsome answer.
“I think anybody, we all know this, that entered this building, that rioted, is not legitimate discourse,” McCarthy said.
The language was a part of the RNC’s resolution to censure Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois) for their involvement on the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot.
The RNC stated that the representatives were “participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”
While McCarthy disagreed with the language, he said Wednesday that he thinks the RNC was not referring to the rioters. He instead suggested that the line was targeted at subpoenas issued to fake electors, per The Hill.
“What they believed, because if you watch what the Jan. 6 committee is doing, they subpoenaed people who weren’t here on Jan. 6, who were actually down in Florida,” McCarthy told NBC News. “They’ve gone after people and their records and that weren’t even a part of Jan. 6. That’s the portion that they [the RNC] were talking about.”
The committee subpoenaed 14 people who signed and sent fake Electoral College certifications to the National Archives.
McCarthy said that by clarifying the language, the RNC would not be getting so much backlash.
RNC chairwoman Ronna McDanielblamed the media for misconstruing the resolution. She said they “really distorted some of the language in the center … Legitimate political discourse never includes violence.”
She maintained that the House select committee had “gone beyond its scope,” since the Republican party was not able to choose who went on the committee, per Fox News.
