Mitch McConnell has wreaked destruction during his reign as Senate minority leader, and even though he’s stepping down from that post, he’s still exerting his malign influence. In a sort of exit interview with Punchbowl News, the lame duck leader was at his worst.
Here are five reasons why he is simply awful.
1. He believes Supreme Court reform is just like Jan. 6.
McConnell equated President Joe Biden’s moderate plan for Supreme Court reform with the mob that attacked the Capitol to overturn the results of the 2020 election. “That’s what some people were trying to do Jan. 6—to break the system of handing an administration from one to the next,” McConnell told Punchbowl. “We can have our arguments, but we ought to not try to break the rules.”
This is the McConnell who called what happened that day a “violent insurrection.” He said the “unhinged crowd … tried to disrupt our democracy.” And Biden’s idea that the justices have to comply with ethics rules and be subject to term limits is just like that.
2. He blasts Trump’s foreign policy, but still endorses him.
After Jan. 6, McConnell called Trump a “son of a bitch” and told fellow Republicans that the Democrats would take care of him with impeachment. Now he’s endorsing that SOB while at the same time ridiculing Trump’s foreign policy approach as “nonsense. … I mean, even the slogans are what they were in the ‘30s—‘America First.’”
3. McConnell is betraying Ukraine.
McConnell is still going to the Senate floor on a regular basis to talk about the importance of helping Ukraine and defeating Russia. At the same time he’s backing Trump’s pick of Sen. JD Vance—one of the most vocal pro-Russia, anti-Ukraine senators—to be vice president.
“It’s not my job to tell the president who he ought to run,” McConnell said. “With regard to Sen. Vance … yeah, we have a different point of view.”
He knows that a Trump/Vance team would hand Ukraine over to the Russians in the guise of a peace settlement, and yet he doesn’t seem to care.
4. He champions flawed and dangerous GOP challengers.
McConnell famously declared that the reason Republicans didn’t take the Senate in 2022 was because of a “candidate quality” problem. Now he’s enthusiastically endorsing a raft of Senate GOP candidates who are a bunch of misogynistic weirdos.
McConnell told Punchbowl that the GOP has “fabulous candidates” in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Nevada.
5. He puts winning above governing.
“The way you win the argument is to get more people elected,” McConnell said. Even if those people are Trump’s MAGA darlings.
Let’s take this last opportunity to humiliate McConnell with another Senate loss. Help these candidates keep the Senate blue.
Here are five reasons why he is simply awful.
1. He believes Supreme Court reform is just like Jan. 6.
McConnell equated President Joe Biden’s moderate plan for Supreme Court reform with the mob that attacked the Capitol to overturn the results of the 2020 election. “That’s what some people were trying to do Jan. 6—to break the system of handing an administration from one to the next,” McConnell told Punchbowl. “We can have our arguments, but we ought to not try to break the rules.”
This is the McConnell who called what happened that day a “violent insurrection.” He said the “unhinged crowd … tried to disrupt our democracy.” And Biden’s idea that the justices have to comply with ethics rules and be subject to term limits is just like that.
2. He blasts Trump’s foreign policy, but still endorses him.
After Jan. 6, McConnell called Trump a “son of a bitch” and told fellow Republicans that the Democrats would take care of him with impeachment. Now he’s endorsing that SOB while at the same time ridiculing Trump’s foreign policy approach as “nonsense. … I mean, even the slogans are what they were in the ‘30s—‘America First.’”
3. McConnell is betraying Ukraine.
McConnell is still going to the Senate floor on a regular basis to talk about the importance of helping Ukraine and defeating Russia. At the same time he’s backing Trump’s pick of Sen. JD Vance—one of the most vocal pro-Russia, anti-Ukraine senators—to be vice president.
“It’s not my job to tell the president who he ought to run,” McConnell said. “With regard to Sen. Vance … yeah, we have a different point of view.”
He knows that a Trump/Vance team would hand Ukraine over to the Russians in the guise of a peace settlement, and yet he doesn’t seem to care.
4. He champions flawed and dangerous GOP challengers.
McConnell famously declared that the reason Republicans didn’t take the Senate in 2022 was because of a “candidate quality” problem. Now he’s enthusiastically endorsing a raft of Senate GOP candidates who are a bunch of misogynistic weirdos.
McConnell told Punchbowl that the GOP has “fabulous candidates” in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Nevada.
5. He puts winning above governing.
“The way you win the argument is to get more people elected,” McConnell said. Even if those people are Trump’s MAGA darlings.
Let’s take this last opportunity to humiliate McConnell with another Senate loss. Help these candidates keep the Senate blue.