Even by Washington standards, the lie Kevin McCarthy told this week was a whopper.
The House Republican leader denied a New York Times story that a few days after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, he privately told his leadership team he was so disgusted by Donald Trump that he might tell him to resign before the end of his term.
But McCarthy didn't just deny the report — he called it "totally false and wrong" and went on to trash "the corporate media" as "obsessed with doing everything it can to further a liberal agenda."
In a matter of hours, the reporters behind the story produced audio of McCarthy's private remarks, showing that McCarthy's denial had been a brazen lie.
But the biggest question among D.C. insiders wasn't whether McCarthy would apologize or resign or anything like that — it was whether Donald Trump would be mad at him. Because if Trump got mad, McCarthy would have a hard time becoming speaker next year, since the House GOP conference loves Trump and McCarthy needs majority support to get the gavel.
It's one of those moments crystallizing the impression that "nothing matters" in Washington except power. Stuff like integrity, honesty and democracy are sideshows for the naive.
An alternate, more charitable reading is that McCarthy's lie was so obvious, there's no need to explain the fact that he is debasing himself in order to flatter an authoritarian ex-president who incited a riot at the Capitol in an effort to overthrow an election.
As it turns out, early reporting suggests Trump is not mad at McCarthy, specifically because Trump is glad McCarthy has gone to such great lengths to appease him after having had a normal reaction to the riot. And the few Republican House members who have spoken up so far have only done so to say they're not mad at him.
McCarthy hasn't said anything publicly on Friday, but sources told The Associated Press that Trump told McCarthy on Thursday night, "I'm not mad at you." Phew!
— Arthur Delaney (arthur@huffpost.com, Twitter @ArthurDelaneyHP)
