Proving that a broken clock is right twice a day, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell trashed former President Donald Trump in private following the 2020 election, calling Trump “stupid,” a “narcissist,” and a “despicable human being,” according to a soon-to-be-released biography of the Kentucky Republican.
McConnell’s frank assessments of the leader of the GOP were made in recorded diaries given to Michael Tackett, the Associated Press deputy Washington bureau chief, for his new McConnell biography titled “The Price of Power.” According to publisher Simon & Schuster, it’s based on “thousands of pages of archival materials, letters, and more than 100 interviews with associates, colleagues, and McConnell himself.”
In those diaries, McConnell said “it’s not just the Democrats who are counting the days” until Trump was out of the White House, adding that Trump’s 2020 loss “only underscores the good judgment of the American people.”
"They’ve had just enough of the misrepresentations, the outright lies almost on a daily basis, and they fired him," McConnell said.
Yet despite McConnell’s disdain for Trump, he gave up on the best opportunity to rid his party and the country of the man he called a liar when he voted against convicting Trump for inciting the violent and deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Had McConnell worked to rally the Republican senators he leads to vote to convict Trump on the single impeachment charge of inciting insurrection, Trump could have been barred from running for office again in the future. McConnell’s decision to let Trump slide helped pave the way for Trump to wage his current comeback bid. Trump has vowed to destabilize American democracy by threatening to jail his political enemies and using the military to go after American citizens whom he described as “the enemy from within.”
What’s more, even though McConnell thinks Trump is “stupid” and a “despicable human being,” he endorsed Trump in his 2024 comeback bid, saying in March: “It is abundantly clear that former President Trump has earned the requisite support of Republican voters to be our nominee for President of the United States. It should come as no surprise that as nominee, he will have my support.”
McConnell endorsed Trump because he is trying to prevent what he called his “worst nightmare” which he described as a Democratic sweep of the White House, the House, and the Senate.
While McConnell has stuck by Trump, a number of other Republicans have said they won’t be voting for him and instead endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid, declaring that they are putting “country over party.”
Those Republicans include: former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former Wyoming Rep Liz Cheney; former Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois; former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan; Alberto Gonzales, who served as attorney general in former President George W. Bush’s administration; and former Trump White House aides Cassidy Hutchinson, Stephanie Grisham, and Olivia Troye, among others.
Harris and her campaign have been reaching out to Republicans, hoping that their defections from Trump could be decisive in what’s currently predicted to be a toss-up election in November.
She held a rally on Wednesday in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, with over 100 Republicans who are supporting her campaign. Two of those Republicans, Bob and Kristina Lange, spoke at the event, describing themselves as lifelong Republicans who voted for Trump.
“Never in a million years did either of us think that we'd be standing here supporting a Democrat. But we've had enough. We've had enough,” Kristina Lange said at the event.
If only McConnell had as much courage as the Langes.
Looking to volunteer to help get out the vote? Click here to view multiple ways you can help reach voters—textbanking, phonebanking, letters, postcards, parties, canvassing. We’ve got you covered!
