McCarthy Calls For No Violence After Trump Urges Supporters To Protest Before Possible Arrest

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called for "calmness" and no violence if former President Donald Trump is indicted or arrested this week.

McCarthy's comments come after Trump urged supporters to "Protest, take our nation back!" because he is expecting to be arrested Tuesday. Although the former president did not mention why he might be arrested, reports say that it could be in connection with an investigation into an alleged hush-money scheme involving adult film star Stormy Daniels.

"I don't think people should protest this stuff," McCarthy told reporters Sunday during the first night of the House GOP's three-day annual issues retreat in Orlando, Florida, according to Politico.

"I think President Trump, if you talked to him, doesn't believe that either. I think the thing that you may misinterpret when President Trump talks and someone says that they can protest, he's probably referring to my tweet: educate people about what's going on. He's not talking in a harmful way, and nobody should."

"This is why you should really make law equal because if that was the case, nothing would happen," he was quoted as saying by The Hill.

"If was this to happen, we want calmness out there," McCarthy added and called for no "violence or harm."

Trump-loyalist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) also spoke about the ex-president's call to protest. "I don't think there's anything wrong with calling...for protests. Americans have the right to assemble and the right to protest," she told reporters in Orlando on Sunday.

Trump "doesn't have to say peaceful for it to mean peaceful. Of course, he means peaceful," she added.

In his Saturday post on Truth Social, Trump hinted at a possible arrest and wrote: The "leading Republican candidate and former president of the United States will be arrested on Tuesday of next week."

His call to "Protest, take our nation back!" sparked fears of potential violence similar to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol that took place following Trump's repeated comments urging supporters to reject the 2020 presidential election results.

Trump would be the first sitting or former president in U.S. history to face criminal charges as Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, has been investigating allegations of the former president making the hush-money payment to Daniels during his victorious 2016 presidential campaign.

According to the allegations, Trump's former personal attorney paid $130,000 to Daniels in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign in exchange for her silence about an affair she claimed to have had with Trump in 2006 and 2007. Trump has since denied the affair allegations.

McCarthy announced in a Saturday tweet that he would be directing an investigation into whether Bragg is using any federal funding for his probe.

"Lawyer after lawyer will tell you this is the weakest case out there, trying to make a misdemeanor a felony," McCarthy also told reporters Sunday about Bragg's investigation of Trump.

"The last thing we want ... is somebody putting their thumb on the scale [of justice] simply because they don't agree with somebody else's political view," he continued. "That is what's wrong, and that's what infuriates people. And this will not hold up in court if this is what he wants to do."

When asked if Trump should still stand in the running to be the next president, McCarthy said: "The Constitution allows him to. He has a constitutional right to run."