Outgoing Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell once again sat for an interview in which he crapped all over Donald Trump, warning that the president-elect’s foreign policy ideas pose a danger not only to the United States but to the whole world.
In an interview with the Financial Times, McConnell said Trump and the Republican Party’s isolationist views are a threat, as “the cost of deterrence is considerably less than the cost of war.”
“To most American voters, I think the simple answer is, ‘Let’s stay out of it.’ That was the argument made in the ’30s and that just won’t work,” McConnell told the Financial Times. “Thanks to [Ronald] Reagan, we know what does work—not just saying peace through strength, but demonstrating it.”
Yet in that very same interview, McConnell admitted that he voted for Trump anyway.
“I supported the ticket,” McConnell said, refusing to even utter Trump’s name.
What’s more, McConnell declined to say whether he should have done more to stop Trump from becoming president for the second time. McConnell had the chance to prevent Trump from running for president again during the Senate impeachment trial over Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021. McConnell voted to acquit Trump, even though he said Trump was responsible for the insurrection at the Capitol that sought to overturn the free and fair election of Joe Biden.
It’s not the first time McConnell has spoken ill of Trump. In October, excerpts from a McConnell biography were released in which McConnell called Trump “stupid,” a “narcissist,” and a “despicable human being.”
Yet despite thinking Trump is an awful person, McConnell endorsed Trump’s 2024 comeback as he made those same attacks against the leader of the Republican Party.
“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 said in March.
But McConnell’s hypocrisy is not a surprise. Earlier in December, McConnell accused federal judges of playing politics by reneging on their decisions to retire in order to prevent Trump from choosing their replacements. But McConnell wrote the book on playing politics with the courts, as he stole a Supreme Court seat from former President Barack Obama, as well as a number of other judicial seats on lower courts.
He also blocked a bicameral commission to probe the Jan. 6 insurrection, even though he believed Trump was responsible for the riot that led to the assault of more than 140 law enforcement officers.
While McConnell won’t be part of Senate GOP leadership next year, he is sticking around Capitol Hill. He claimed to the Financial Times that without the constraints of being in leadership, he will now push back on Trump and his own party’s isolationist policies.
“No matter who got elected president, I think it was going to require significant pushback, yeah, and I intend to be one of the pushers,” McConnell said.
But given that he’s always capitulated to Trump, color us skeptical.
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