presented by the American Beverage Association.

Hey, what's up, Playbookers? I'm Ragu Mona Vallin. It's Friday. Today's show,

what Kevin McCarthy's House speakership might be over before it even began. It's your Politico

Playbook daily briefing.

For years now, through controversy after controversy, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has bent over backward to stay publicly aligned with former President Donald Trump, all to

serve one major purpose.

He wants to be speaker someday.

But that hope may have just blown up on the launch pad.

On Thursday night,

Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns from The New York Times delivered an absolute stuner of a scoop,

an audio recording of a phone call on January 10th, 2021, in which McCarthy himself is heard clearly and unambiguously saying that Donald Trump should resign. Here's what's going on on the tape.

McCarthy essentially conspires with Representative Liz Cheney about how to get Trump to step down as president after the January 6th insurrection. On the call, Cheney currently Trump enemy number one, but at the time, the House Chopee's number three leader asked McCarthy if Trump is going to resign. I guess first a question, when we were talking about the 25th Amendment resolution,

and you asked what happens if it gets there after he's gone,

is there any chance, are you hearing that he might resign?

Is there any reason to think that might happen?

I've had some few discussions.

My gut tells me no.

There's a link in today's playbook for the entire recording, but here is the most pertinent part.

The only discussion I would have with him is that I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation we should resign.

Making this all the more explosive is the backstory to that recording's release.

Early yesterday morning, the New York Times published a piece by Martin and Burns,

drawing on the reporting for their forthcoming book, this will not pass.

...