The recording, those members said, merely revealed Mr. McCarthy for the person his conference knew him to be. And for now, there was no obvious alternative to challenge him in a race for speaker.
Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key Developments
Card 1 of 5Signs of progress. The federal investigation into the Jan. 6 attack appears to be gaining momentum. The Justice Department has brought in a well-regarded new prosecutor to help run the inquiry, while a high-profile witness — the far-right broadcaster Alex Jones — is seeking an immunity deal to provide information.
Weighing changes to the Insurrection Act. Some lawmakers on the Jan. 6 House committee have begun discussions about rewriting the Insurrection Act in response to the events that led to the Capitol riot. The law currently gives presidents the authority to deploy the military to respond to a rebellion, and some fear it could be abused by a president trying to stoke one.
Debating a criminal referral. The House panel has grown divided over whether to make a criminal referral of former President Donald J. Trump to the Justice Department, even though it has concluded that it has enough evidence to do so. The debate centers on whether a referral would backfire by politically tainting the expanding federal investigation.
Continuing election doubts. More than a year after they tried and failed to use Congress’s final count of electoral votes on Jan. 6 to overturn the election, some Trump allies are pushing bogus legal theories about “decertifying” the 2020 vote and continuing to fuel a false narrative that has resonated with Mr. Trump’s supporters.
Cooperating with investigators. Pat A. Cipollone and Patrick F. Philbi, two of Mr. Trump’s top White House lawyers, met with the Jan. 6 House committee, while Ali Alexander, a prominent organizer of pro-Trump events after the 2020 election, said he would assist in the federal investigation.
But Mr. McCarthy is also up against powerful political enemies who hold sway with the extremists in his conference. On Friday morning, Stephen K. Bannon, the former top White House adviser, said on his popular podcast that it was a “cardinal sin” to deny comments that were then aired on tape.
In his quest to become speaker, Mr. McCarthy has long engaged in painful contortions to please the disparate factions of his conference — all of whose support he will need to become the most powerful Republican in Washington.
That has often meant going out of his way not to antagonize Mr. Trump or his staunchest allies in Congress. He has dodged reporters in the hallways of the Capitol asking him about a Republican National Committee resolution that suggested that Jan. 6 was “legitimate political discourse” and censured members of his conference for participating in the House investigation of the attack. He has refrained from punishing far-right Republicans who have attended white supremacist rallies or released videos promoting violence against Democrats, instead saying that he has had stern, private conversations with them about their behavior.
Mr. McCarthy’s office did not respond to requests for comment on Friday about the tape. He is scheduled to travel on Monday with a group of House Republicans to the southwestern border in Texas, where he is expected to hold a news conference and is likely to be pressed to publicly respond to the taped conversation.
In Mr. Trump’s circles, Mr. McCarthy is already viewed with skepticism and little trust. The relationship between the two men, aides to Mr. Trump said, was cordial but not particularly close. The former president is closer with House members like Representative Elise Stefanik of New York and Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, both of whom he speaks to regularly and views as loyalists. Mr. McCarthy, in contrast, often relies on his aide Brian Jack, a former White House political director, as an intermediary who has a solid relationship with the former president.
Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida and a critic of Mr. McCarthy’s who has pushed for Mr. Trump to become speaker, was the first to denounce his comments.