Mitch McConnell 'laughed off' Trump's blistering broadside in which the senator was branded 'a dour, sullen and unsmiling political hack' and says he plans to ignore the ex-president
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was reportedly unfazed by the scathing broadside he endured from Donald Trump on Tuesday, in which the former president, among other things, labelled him a ‘dour, sullen and unsmiling political hack’.
According to CNN, the Kentucky Senator just laughed off the blistering comments and has no plans to dignify Trump’s remarks with a response.
McConnell’s apparent choice to take the proverbial high-road, sources say, is indicative of how he plans to navigate the post-Trump era: by ignoring him completely.
‘You probably are not going to hear him utter the name Donald Trump ever again,’ a source told the network. ‘He's moving on.’
Whether Trump will follow suit, however, remains to be seen. But the source said that 'McConnell is too disciplined' to rise to any future bait.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was reportedly unfazed by the scathing attack he endured from Donald Trump on Tuesday. Sources say he laughed off the remarks and has no plans to respond
In his Tuesday statement, issued through his Save America PAC, Trump delivered a number of stunning personal attacks on McConnell, accusing him of ‘destroying’ the GOP and urging the party’s senators to end his leadership
In his Tuesday statement, issued through his Save America PAC, Trump delivered a number of stunning personal attacks on McConnell, accused him of ‘destroying’ the GOP and urged the party’s senators to bring an end to his leadership.
According to Politico, Trump’s statement could have been even more cutting, if not for the intervention of some of his aides.
A source familiar with the matter told the outlet that Trump wanted to mock McConnell for having ‘multiple chins but not enough smarts’, but advisors managed to talk him down.
The former president’s thunderous remarks came just days after McConnell, the Republican Party’s most senior elected figure, voted to acquit Trump for inciting the Capitol riots but then blasted his conduct in an excoriating speech.
McConnell declined to charge Trump, he said, because the Senate lacked jurisdiction to try a former president. But he did strongly condemn Trump, insisting he was to blame for the deadly insurrection on January 6.
‘Former President Trump's actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty,’ McConnell said on the Senate floor.
In response, Trump wrote in his letter: ‘The Republican Party can never again be respected or strong with political 'leaders' like Sen. Mitch McConnell at its helm.
‘McConnell's dedication to business as usual, status quo policies, together with his lack of political insight, wisdom, skill, and personality, has rapidly driven him from Majority Leader to Minority Leader, and it will only get worse,' he wrote.
'The Democrats and Chuck Schumer play McConnell like a fiddle—they've never had it so good and they want to keep it that way! We know our America First agenda is a winner, not McConnell's Beltway First agenda or Biden's America Last.'
Trump also claimed that McConnell ‘begged’ or his endorsement last year and saw his poll numbers shoot up more than 20 points in the aftermath.
Several sources told CNN that statement is completely false, noting that Trump was even presented with a poll during a White House meeting last year showing the GOP leader handedly ahead in his reelection bid.
McConnell’s apparent choice to take the proverbial high-road, sources say, underscores how he plans to navigate the post-Trump era: by completely ignoring him
A day after blistering McConnell, on Wednesday, Trump broke his near-month long self-imposed media silence to regurgitate his baseless claims of election fraud, insisting he was the rightful winner of the November vote.
Trump also continued to attack McConnell, accusing the Senate GOP leader of failing to stand up for Republicans.
‘The Republicans are soft. They only hit their own, like Mitch,’ Trump complained on Newsmax. ‘If they spent the same time hitting [Senate Democratic leader Chuck] Schumer and [President Joe] Biden, the Republicans would be much better off, that I can tell you.’
Republican officials in several battlegrounds carried by Biden, including Georgia and Arizona, have said the vote was fair.
Trump’s legal claims surrounding the vote were rejected by judges across the political spectrum, including many appointed by the former president.
McConnell himself described Trump’s contention as an ‘unhinged falsehood.’
Leading GOP strategists described the exploding feud between the former Republican president and the Senate’s most powerful Republican as, at best, a distraction and, at worst, a direct threat to the party’s path to the House and Senate majorities in next year’s midterms.
‘I don’t think he cares about winning,’ Steven Law, a McConnell ally who leads the most powerful Republican-aligned super PAC in Washington, said of Trump. ‘He just wants it to be about himself.’
Law noted that Trump lost several states where Republicans face must-win Senate elections in next year’s quest to break up Democrats’ control of Congress, including in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Republicans are also competing in Nevada and New Hampshire, where Trump was defeated, and in North Carolina, where Trump won by the narrowest of margins.
If Trump tries to make himself ‘the center of attention,’ Law said, ‘that actually could cost Republicans seats in the general election.’
‘Former President Trump's actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty,’ McConnell said on the Senate floor
In addition to stoking infighting within the GOP, Trump has also previously peddled the prospect of starting a new political party, which would endanger the Republican Party’s very existence.
Roughly 120 anti-Trump Republicans, including current and former officeholders, secretly convened earlier in the month to contemplate the future of the GOP.
A plurality, or 40 percent, supported the idea of creating a new party, according to an internal survey provided by one of the meeting’s organizers, former independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin.
‘There’s a lot of energy out there for something new,’ McMullin said, while encouraging Trump to follow through with his threats of creating a Patriot Party. ‘Frankly, I would welcome him to start a new party and take his most loyal supporters with him. I think that would be a wonderful thing for the party and the country.’
Trump’s plans for the future are still coming together in West Palm Beach, Florida.
He has been banned from Facebook and Twitter for inciting violence, but on Wednesday, he broke his month-long silence, giving his first interviews since leaving the White House after the death of conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh.
On Newsmax, Trump said his team was still exploring its options for returning to social media and ‘negotiating with a number of people,’ while still keeping the option of building his own platform on the table.
‘We’re looking at a lot of different things, but I really wanted to be somewhat quiet,’ Trump said, sidestepping repeated questions about whether he intends to run again in 2024.
‘Too early to say,’ he said, while acknowledging that he missed being president.
Still, Trump said that he has had no problem communicating when he wants to by issuing statements - and has made clear this week that he will not retire quietly.
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