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​Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House, on Sunday defended former President Trump’s response to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot in a tense interview on Fox News.

“I was the first person to contact him when the riot was going on. He didn’t see it. When he ended the call he was telling me, he’ll put something out to make sure to stop this,” McCarthy said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“And that’s what he did. He put a video out later,” McCarthy of California said.

But anchor Chris Wallace noted that Trump released the video “quite a lot later. And it was a pretty weak video.”

He pressed McCarthy on whether the former president said, “I guess some people are more upset about the election then you are” — but didn’t get a definitive response.

“My conversations with the president are my conversations with the president. I engaged in the idea of making sure we could stop what was going on inside the Capitol at that moment in time,” McCarthy replied.

“The president said he would help,” McCarthy said.

As a mob of pro-Trump supporters stormed the Capitol as a joint session of Congress voted to certify the 2020 presidential election for President Biden, the former president released a video urging the crowd to “go home in peace.”

“I know how you feel, but go home and go home in peace. I know you’re in pain. I know you’re hurt,” Trump said in a video posted on his Twitter account.

Wallace grilled McCarthy about Trump’s comments, noting that GOP Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler said McCarthy told Republican lawmakers about his phone call with the president on Jan. 6.

In a statement she released in February, Herrera Beutler said during the conversation McCarthy pushed back on Trump’s claim that Antifa was behind the riot and that they were Trump supporters.

At that point, Herrera Buetler, who was among 10 House Republicans voting to impeach Trump, said McCarthy told them that the former president said: “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election that you are.”

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