McConnell reveals what he really thinks of Trump, ‘MAGA movement’ in new biography
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) appears willing to kneecap his party before stepping down as Republican leader at year’s end.
The 82-year-old, who figures he has a shot at re-election in 2026, reportedly lashed out against the increasingly diverse, populist, and anti-war GOP in an upcoming biography, claiming the “MAGA movement is completely wrong.”
In an excerpt from the biography
obtained by CNN, McConnell told the Associated Press’ Michael Tackett, “I think Trump was the biggest factor in changing the Republican Party from what Ronald Reagan viewed and he wouldn’t recognize today.”
‘We are all on the same team now.’
The book, which reportedly draws on an “oral history” that McConnell has been recording for the past 30 years, is apparently replete with anti-Trump barbs that Democrats will likely liberate from context and utilize in the final stretch before Election Day.
McConnell told CNN in a statement that despite the anti-Trump venom that lines the pages of the book, things between him and Trump are now copacetic.
“Whatever I may have said about President Trump pales in comparison to what JD Vance, Lindsey Graham, and others have said about him, but we are all on the same team now,” said McConnell.
Prior to endorsing Trump in June, the nominal Republican clearly had plenty to get off his chest.
“Unfortunately, about half the Republicans in the country believe whatever [Trump] says,” McConnell complained sometime before the end of Trump’s first term. “I think I’m pretty safe in saying it’s not just the Democrats who are counting the days until he leaves on January 20, but the Republicans as well.”
In addition to suggesting that Trump should have been impeached, McConnell called the 45th president a “sleazeball” and a “narcissist” and accused him of being “stupid as well as being ill-tempered.”
According to McConnell, President Donald Trump — who recently
overtook Kamala Harris in four national polls and beat the odds in 2016 — has “done a lot of damage to our party’s image and our ability to compete.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) recently accused McConnell of adversely impacting his compatriots’ ability to compete,
telling BlazeTV host Mark Levin, “McConnell runs the largest Republican super PAC in the country and has $400 million, but that super PAC is used to reward the Republican senators who obey him and to punish those who dare to stand up to him.”
Cruz, referring to the
Senate Leadership Fund, which is run by McConnell’s former chief of staff, noted that he had not received a penny from the fund. The McConnell-aligned fundraising group also starved Florida Sen. Rick Scott of funding this cycle.
‘The Senate Republican leader is supposed to help Republicans, not undermine them.’
Extra to complaining about Trump, McConnell criticized Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who unsuccessfully challenged him in 2022.
“I don’t think Rick makes a very good victim,” said the nominal Republican. “I think he did a poor job of running the [Senate campaign] committee. His plan was used by the Democrats against our candidates as late as the last weekend [before the election]. He promoted the fiction that we were in the middle of a big sweep when there was no tangible evidence of it. And I think his campaign against me was some kind of ill-fated effort to turn the attention away from him and on to somebody else.”
Scott said earlier this year that McConnell effectively neutralizes Republican voters’ representation in the U.S. Senate, lording over one part of a two-person dictatorship.
“In the Senate, there’s two dictatorships,” said Scott. “There’s a McConnell dictatorship on the Republican side, and then there’s the [Chuck] Schumer dictatorship.”
McConnell’s biography reportedly also highlights the trouble he had with Trump calling his wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, the senator’s “China loving wife, Coco Chow,” and details how he wept during the Jan. 6, 2021, protests.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) responded to McConnell’s quotes, calling his attacks on Trump and Scott “indefensible.”
“Those running for Senate GOP leadership posts need to weigh in on this & commit never to sabotage Republican candidates & colleagues — particularly those who are less than two weeks away from a close election,”
tweeted Lee. “We must have clarity from the candidates running to replace McConnell on where they stand on these attacks. They must be clear on how they plan to lead the conference, and on the role of its members.”
Lee
added that “the Senate Republican leader is supposed to help Republicans, not undermine them. Sadly, we’ve had too much of the latter.”
Responding to McConnell’s indication that he plans on “arguing more with [Republicans] probably than the Democrats” in the months to come, Blaze News senior editor for politics Christopher Bedford
wrote, “McConnell has been at odds with Republican voters for years. He doesn’t care, and it’s becoming increasingly obvious.”
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