McCarthy pushes back against Cassidy Hutchinson's Jan. 6 committee testimony, insisting that calls to the White House that day were for one reason alone: 'I was trying to find the president'

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy holds a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on September 23, 2021 in Washington, DC.

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• Kevin McCarthy said he's never talked to Trump about the aborted Jan. 6 march to the Capitol.
• The House GOP minority leader said he didn't want anyone at the Capitol during the deadly attack.
• A White House aide testified that McCarthy called her in a panic to stop Trump from visiting.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Friday that he and then-President Donald Trump never discussed a post-Stop the Steal rally visit to the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and that any calls he made while rioters stormed the building were about locating the absentee POTUS. 

"I was trying to find the president," McCarthy told reporters of the back-and-forth that went on with the White House while MAGA supporters attacked lawmakers. 

The California Republican's latest comment contradicts testimony former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson provided to the January 6 select committee. Hutchinson told investigators that McCarthy flew into a rage during a conversation they had after Trump closed out his election fraud-centric speech on the Ellipse by declaring that he was going to march to the Capitol with the partially-armed crowd. 

"Well, he just said it on stage, Cassidy. Figure it out. Don't come up here," Hutchinson said McCarthy ordered during the combative call. 

McCarthy attempted to refute every part of that during Friday's press conference in the Capitol. 

He told reporters he didn't watch Trump's "fight like hell" speech that day so he couldn't have known about any trek to the Capitol. "I was busy working," McCarthy told CNN correspondent Manu Raju. 

McCarthy conceded that he did reach out to the White House once rioters breached security, but said he only called Trump advisors Dan Scavino and Jared Kushner to find out where Trump was during that chaotic time. 

McCarthy said he didn't recall speaking to Hutchinson that day. But he added that if he did, he wouldn't have been inviting anyone to join the MAGA-related melee. 

"If I talked to her, I don't remember it," McCarthy said. "If it was coming up here, I don't think I wanted a lot of people coming up to the Capitol."

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