Former U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy once referred to former President Donald Trump as “Benito Mussolini,” a new book reveals.
“Romney: A Reckoning,” written by The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins, contains several revelations into what Trump’s Republican loyalists really thought about the former president behind closed doors. “Almost without exception,” Romney told Coppins, his U.S. Senate colleagues “shared my view of the president.”
It now appears the same can be said of some of Trump’s allies in the House of Representatives, too. When Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, several members of the U.S. House were in attendance. Writes Coppins:
Later, a Republican Congressman would tell him that after Trump’s speech ended, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who was seated in the convention hall, leaned over and whispered, “Benito Mussolini.” In public, McCarthy was an avid supporter of Trump, already in the process of turning his sycophancy into an art form. (He would eventually become famous for assigning an aide in his office to sort through packs of Starbursts and fill a jar with just the pinks and reds so that he could present Trump with his favorite flavors.)
During Trump’s second impeachment, after Jan. 6, 2021, a Republican congressman told Romney that “he wanted to vote for Trump’s (conviction), but chose not to out of fear for his family’s safety.” On another occasion, when discussing the impeachment with colleagues, one senator told Romney he was “leaning toward voting to convict.” Other Republican senators “urged him to reconsider. You can’t do that, Romney recalled someone saying. Think of your personal safety, said another. Think of your children. The senator eventually decided they were right.”