Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, you may recall, endorsed Donald John Trump for president of these United States a few months back, explaining, in so many words, that, given his official position, he felt obligated to support his party’s candidate no matter how distasteful.
At the time it was noted that under the criteria Mitch set for himself he could back Bozo the Clown as leader of the free world.
Now we know that presumption is wholly justified.
In a series of interviews with Michael Tackett, the deputy Washington bureau chief for the Associated Press, conducted after the 2020 election, McConnell, of Louisville, described Trump, the once and perhaps future president, as “stupid,” “ill-tempered,” a “despicable human being,” and a “narcissist.”
Other than that, apparently, he thought he was a great guy.
Trump famously lost his re-election bid four years ago, although he continues to proclaim victory while maintaining that the results that put President Biden in the White House were “rigged.” McConnell offered a different assessment in the interview, saying the result “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.”
And good riddance. McConnell told Tackett, “it’s not just the Democrats who are counting the days” to Trump’s departure from office.
As my sainted Grandma Eick used to say, “Oh, isn’t that lovely.”
Tackett included the details in an upcoming McConnell biography, The Price of Power: How Mitch McConnell Mastered the Senate, Changed America, and Lost His Party, set for release later this month.
As you might expect, once the quotes hit the headlines, our boy Mitch wasted little time backing and filling.
“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,” McConnell said in a statement to the Associated Press.
Even a burglar could have said it better than that. Mitch is back on the team now and the filth he spewed previously, he insists, carries no further resonance.
You bet. For some reason, the word “hack” comes to mind.
So, let’s sort this out. McConnell endorsed Trump for president despite being all-too-aware of the man’s overt stupidity and despicableness. He did so after the Lord of Mar-a-Lago instigated an insurrection against the country he was elected to lead, after Trump made racist remarks about the senator’s wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, and after he acted the schoolyard bully toward McConnell on a constant basis.
McConnell and Trump never got along on a personal or professional level. Their styles contrasted like a tuxedo and a pair of brown shoes (to steal an old George Goebel line). McConnell used a switchblade and Trump favored the sledgehammer. They jousted frequently, with Trump left particularly irritated because McConnell, during his time as majority leader, refused to deep six the filibuster, which Trump hated with a white passion.
The empire crumbled after the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol, an event that led McConnell to make a floor speech in which he said Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the insurrection. Trump has called him everything other than a Christian man ever since.
Per example, Trump once exalted that McConnell “is a dour, sullen, and unsmiling hack, and if Republicans are going to stay with him, they will not win again.”
In a sort of response, according to Vanity Fair, McConnell told Tackett, “I can’t think of anybody I’d rather be criticized by than this sleazeball. Every time he takes a shot at me, I think it’s good for my reputation.”
Now we can add “sleazeball” to the list of Trump descriptors.
What all this says about Trump is obvious. He wasn’t fit to be president the first go-round, and he certainly isn’t fit today.
But what does it say about McConnell, who, at 82, is stepping aside as Republican leader in the upper chamber after the election?
McConnell has proved to be a moral coward. He clearly understood the country was in deep trouble with the chaotic, craven, undependable, and, if recent campaign appearances are any indication, addled Trump at the helm, and that the nation’s voters showed “good judgment” ousting him from office.
Now, with an election on the line and Trump once again campaigning to place American democracy in mortal danger, Mitch is all “let bygones be bygones.” He’s joining other erstwhile anti-Trump Republican agitators – Vance, the Ohio senator and vice-presidential candidate, and Graham, the South Carolina senator – selling their political souls in pursuit of power.
This doesn’t mark the first time McConnell sold himself cheap. Trump, during his long four years in office, was impeached twice, the second time related to the insurrection that Mitch at the time damned in no uncertain terms. In both instances he made sure Trump walked away unscathed, leaving Mr. Stupid N. Despicable to fight another day and possibly roil turmoil anew.
This condenses McConnell’s historically long tenure as Senate Republican leader into a small package. The McConnell method has always been party before country. If a mad man was running for president under the GOP label, you could always count on Mitch to hop aboard the bandwagon and yell, “Make room for daddy!”
And he has constantly maintained rearguard action against any perceived strike at his authority. That’s why he failed to follow through on the effort to impeach Trump – fear that in response the president’s loyalists might seek his ouster.
It’s not pretty. McConnell could have made a statement awhile back and announced that he was morally incapable of endorsing a “sleazeball” like Trump for president as he had done twice before. He would opt to write-in the name of a Republican who more closely aligned with his view of America.
Instead, when questioned about his endorsement, he acted flustered and perplexed, insisting that it should come as no surprise that he was endorsing his party’s nominee, as if no baggage was attached. Direct knowledge that he found the buffoon to be stupid and a despicable human being puts a pretty, red ribbon on the package.
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Written by Bill Straub, a member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame.
Cross-posted from the NKY Tribune.
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