Story highlights The Washington Post reported Kevin McCarthy said Vladminir Putin pays Donald Trump

The comments came a year ago but were just reported Wednesday

(CNN) House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy has said his assertion last year that Russian President Vladimir Putin was paying President Donald Trump was merely a bad attempt at humor.

"It was a bad attempt at a joke," McCarthy told reporters leaving the House floor Wednesday, minutes after The Washington Post reported his comments from a private Capitol Hill conversation during the 2016 campaign.

"That's all there is to it," McCarthy added. "No one believes it to be true."

But the comments take on new resonance in the wake of a blockbuster week on Capitol Hill in which news out of the White House is constant and Republican leaders are struggling to protect themselves, their rank-and-file and their agenda from being swallowed up by the news of the day,

The Post reported McCarthy said in a conversation with fellow Republican leaders in 2016 that "there's two people I think Putin pays: (Rep. Dana) Rohrabacher and Trump," according to a recording of the June 2016 exchange.

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