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1/ It's worth remembering the entire context of McCarthy's remarks which @washingtonpost printed at the time. It shows that not only was McCarthy NOT joking, he was speaking in response to a series of events that began to reveal the corrupt core of the Trump-Russia scandal.
2/ As I write in #HouseofTrump, McCarthy's remarks came in June 2016, just 6 days after the Trump Tower meeting, and the same day the GOP House leadership had met Ukrainian PM Groysman, leading Paul Ryan to make the astonishing claim that the GOP was standing up to Russia. 
3/ That's when McCarthy chimed in. McCarthy had a reputation for blurting out inconvenient truths, having said on Fox a key reason for Benghazi hearing was to drive down Hillary's poll numbers.
4/ This time, he was speaking in the wake of revelations the previous day that Russian intelligence had hacked DNC computers. Now, McCarthy put it all together. This was his eureka moment. No joke. No laughing matter.
