Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Sunday pushed back on Donald Trump’s calls for protests if he is ultimately indicted, instead calling for "calmness" and urging against any violence.
His remarks during a press conference came a day after the former president predicted he would be arrested on Tuesday amid reports that New York Defense Attorney Alvin Bragg was preparing for the possibility of charging the former president in connection with allegations he paid hush money to porn actress Stormy Daniels.
"I don't think people should protest this, no," McCarthy told reporters during the first night of the House GOP’s three-day annual issues retreat. “We want calmness out there.”
The ex-president on Truth Social called for his followers to “Protest, take our nation back,” when attacking the investigation and its chief investigator Saturday. But the top House Republican sought to smooth over Trump’s wording, in a throwback to a frequent GOP tactic during his four years in the White House, suggesting he likely meant to “educate” people about the actions by Bragg.
“I think President Trump, if you talked to him, doesn’t believe that either. I think the thing that you may misinterpret when President Trump talks and someone says that they can protest, he’s probably referring to my tweet: educate people about what’s going on. He’s not talking in a harmful way, and nobody should.”
McCarthy, however, said in a follow-up question that he has not spoken to Trump, but he has spoken to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chair of the House Judiciary Committee and its weaponization subpanel.
But not all agreed with McCarthy.
Just feet away from the stage where McCarthy and other members of leadership argued against protests, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) told reporters that people have the right to protest, though she denounced any potential political violence in reaction to a possible Trump indictment.
“I don't think there's anything wrong with calling for protests. Americans have the right to assemble, the right to protest. And that's an important constitutional right. And he doesn't have to say peaceful for it to mean peaceful. Of course, he means peaceful,” Greene told reporters. “Of course, President Trump means peaceful protests.”
Greene, an ardent Trump loyalist who supported McCarthy during his speakership race, similarly attacked the probe as “corrupt” and a “witch hunt,” while comparing it to what happens in communist countries.
And she also defended the California Republican’s response when asked directly about it, saying that while “people have the right to choose,” that she’s “said the same thing” as McCarthy. (Greene noted she won’t go to New York to protest, instead planning to go to Trump’s rally in Waco, Texas, later this month.)
Looming over Trump’s latest protest remarks are memories of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot in 2021, when he encouraged followers to turn out to protest the presidential election results.
Nevertheless, Republicans do seem in agreement that they oppose Bragg’s efforts, with McCarthy already issuing various tweets over the past two days vowing to have relevant committees probe whether federal funds “are used to facilitate the perversion of justice by Soros-backed DAs across the country,” referencing billionaire liberal donor George Soros.
NBC News reported Friday that law enforcement and security agencies across various levels of government were preparing for the possibility of an indictment as early as this week, including taking security precautions in the event of violent outbursts.
When pressed whether such funds are really used that way, he said he doesn’t know but plans to probe the matter to find out.
“I don't know, did you read my tweet?” McCarthy asked one reporter asking about where he believes the funds come from. “I said I need to investigate. So I don't have I don't have the answers.”
When asked if there is any evidence the DA could obtain that could convince him that charges were warranted, McCarthy deflected by hammering the DA as being politically motivated. And he also argued that Trump, if he is ultimately indicted, isn’t barred from running for president under the Constitution when asked if it would be appropriate for him to continue campaigning.
And there could be more action coming from the new majority in the coming days.
"I talked to Chairman Jim Jordan today. I think you'll see action tomorrow," said McCarthy.
If former President Donald Trump is indicted this week, any protests that take place should be peaceful and lawful, former Vice President Mike Pence said Sunday.
Trump took to social media over the weekend to call on his supporters “take our nation back” should he face criminal charges.
“I believe that people understand that if they give voice to this, if this occurs on Tuesday, that they need to do so peacefully and in a lawful manner,” Pence told ABC’s Jonathan Karl during an interview that aired on “This Week.”
“The violence that occurred on January 6, the violence that occurred in cities throughout this country in the summer of 2020, was a disgrace. The American people won’t tolerate it and those that engage in that kind of violence should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” he said.
The former vice president declined to say whether Trump’s call for protests on social media was irresponsible, instead calling the investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg politicized.
“It just feels like a politically charged prosecution here,” Pence said, later adding that he supports efforts in Congress, led by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, to investigate Trump’s potential prosecution.
“Nobody's above the law. But nobody's beneath the law either,” Pence said. “And the American people are troubled after four years of our administration, seeing the politicization of the Justice Department, I strongly support the efforts in Congress to investigate the role that politics is playing in our justice system today.”
Though criminal charges appear imminent in the case over Trump's handling of a hush money payment made during his 2016 presidential campaign, there is no clear basis for the former president's claim that he expects to be arrested Tuesday.
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited the occupied port city of Mariupol, Russian state news agencies reported Sunday, his first trip to the Ukrainian territory that Moscow illegally annexed in September.
Earlier, on Saturday, Putin traveled to Crimea, a short distance southwest of Mariupol, to mark the ninth anniversary of the Black Sea peninsula’s annexation from Ukraine. Mariupol became a worldwide symbol of defiance after outgunned and outmanned Ukrainian forces held out in a steel mill there for nearly three months before Moscow finally took control of it in May.
The visits, during which he was shown chatting with local residents in Mariupol and visiting an art school and a children’s center in Crimea, were a show of defiance by the Russian leader two days after a court issued a warrant for his arrest on war crimes charges. Putin has not commented on the arrest warrant, which deepened his international isolation despite the unlikelihood of him facing trial anytime soon.
The trip also came ahead of a planned visit to Moscow by Chinese President Xi Jinping this week, expected to provide a major diplomatic boost to Putin in his confrontation with the West.
Putin arrived in Mariupol by helicopter and then drove himself around the city’s “memorial sites,” concert hall and coastline, Russian news reports said, without specifying exactly when the visit took place. They said Putin also met with local residents in the city’s Nevskyi district.
Speaking to the state RIA agency Sunday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnulin made clear that Russia was in Mariupol to stay. He said the government hoped to finish the reconstruction of its blasted downtown by the end of the year.
“People have started to return. When they saw that reconstruction is under way, people started actively returning,” Khusnulin told RIA.
When Moscow fully captured the city in May, an estimated 100,000 people remained out of a prewar population of 450,000. Many were trapped without food, water, heat or electricity. Relentless bombardment left rows upon rows of shattered or hollowed-out buildings.
Mariupol’s plight first came into focus with a Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital on March 9 last year, less than two weeks after Russian troops moved into Ukraine. A week later, about 300 people were reported killed in the bombing of a theater that was serving as the city’s largest bomb shelter. Evidence obtained by the AP last spring suggested that the real death toll could be closer to 600.
A small group of Ukrainian fighters held out for 83 days in the sprawling Azovstal steel works in eastern Mariupol before surrendering, their dogged defense tying down Russian forces and coming to symbolize Ukrainian tenacity in the face of Moscow’s aggression.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that most of the world denounced as illegal, and moved on last September to officially claim four regions in Ukraine’s south and east as Russian territory, following referendums that Kyiv and the West described as a sham.
