McCarthy to meet Trump after rift over his assertion that the former president ‘bears responsibility’ for the Capitol attack.
Donald J. Trump is set to meet on Thursday with Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, weeks after Mr. Trump erupted over Mr. McCarthy saying on the House floor that the former president bore responsibility for the violent rampage at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The two are to meet at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club in Florida, according to a person briefed on the plan. Mr. McCarthy, Republican of California, was not making a special trip for the meeting; he was in Palm Beach, Fla., to raise money for the party’s efforts to try to retake the House majority in 2022, the person said.
Mr. Trump had been livid with Mr. McCarthy and, according to people close to the former president, privately referred to him with a vulgarity commonly used to describe a coward after his speech during the House debate on impeaching the former president for “incitement of insurrection.”
“The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters,” Mr. McCarthy said in the speech, which he delivered before joining a vast majority of Republicans in opposing the charge. “He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump: accept his share of responsibility, quell the brewing unrest and ensure President-elect Biden is able to successfully begin his term.”
Mr. Trump did none of those things, yet Mr. McCarthy has since tempered his criticism. He told reporters last week that he did not believe Mr. Trump had “provoked” the mob. In an interview that aired on Sunday, he said that while the former president bore “some responsibility” for the storming of the Capitol, “I also think everybody across this country has some responsibility.”
Some Trump advisers have tried to tamp down the notion that Mr. Trump has lingering hostility toward the House leader, and aides to both men hoped the meeting would help ease tensions.
It came amid mounting evidence that most Republicans — far from repudiating Mr. Trump, as it appeared they might after the deadly siege — have rallied strongly around him before his impeachment trial. All but five Senate Republicans voted on Tuesday to dismiss the trial as unconstitutional before it could get underway.
Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, joined a vast majority of his party in doing so, though he has said that he believes Mr. Trump “provoked” the mob that assaulted the Capitol and privately concluded that the former president committed impeachable offenses.
Mr. McConnell, who had previously said he would wait to hear the arguments at trial before deciding whether to convict Mr. Trump, told reporters on Wednesday that he still had an open mind about a proceeding that has yet to begin in earnest.
“I intend to participate in that and listen to the evidence,” he said.
Mr. McConnell has not spoken to Mr. Trump since mid-December, when he called the White House to inform him that he planned to recognize President Biden’s victory after the Electoral College certification of the results.
