Donald Trump has been heard from little since leaving office, but the former president roared back onto the political scene on Tuesday with a blistering attack on Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
In a statement filled with Trumpian insults, the former president called the Kentucky senator a “dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack” and vowed revenge against the anti-Trump Republican establishment, Fox News reported.
Trump blasts McConnell
Now the most powerful Republican in government, McConnell has emerged as the top foe of Trump and his MAGA movement within the GOP.
He seemed to sever ties with Trump altogether on Saturday with a broadside calling him “practically and morally responsible” for the January riot at the Capitol that was at the center of a second, failed impeachment of the former president.
Trump fired back in a statement Tuesday, belittling McConnell as a weak leader who lets Democrats play him “like a fiddle” and who represents a “business as usual” establishment that doesn’t know how to win. “The Democrats and Chuck Schumer play McConnell like a fiddle — they’ve never had it so good — and they want to keep it that way! We know our America First agenda is a winner, not McConnell’s Beltway First agenda or Biden’s America Last,” he wrote.
The “Georgia disaster”
The former president boasted that the Republican Party has had great success riding his coattails, saying he regrets endorsing McConnell after he “begged” (in scare quotes) for Trump’s support. “How quickly he forgets. Without my endorsement, McConnell would have lost, and lost badly,” Trump wrote.
Trump said it was McConnell’s “lack of political insight, wisdom, skill, and personality” and “status quo” policies that cost the party the Senate majority in the “Georgia disaster.”
He pointed to McConnell’s refusal to support the $2,000 coronavirus stimulus checks that Trump pushed in his final days in office, as well as McConnell’s failure to support election integrity. “He doesn’t have what it takes, never did, and never will,” Trump said.
Trump not going anywhere
McConnell’s opposition to Trump’s $2,000 checks and refusal to back Trump’s election challenges set up a divide in Trump’s final days that has since broken into open war for the GOP’s future.
Trump remains the most popular figure in the party, however, despite McConnell’s wishes. The former president reassured McConnell he has no plans of disappearing, calling McConnell a “dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack” and promising to support primary candidates who will carry on the MAGA banner.
“Where necessary and appropriate, I will back primary rivals who espouse Making America Great Again and our policy of America First,” he said.
Trump concluded, “This is a big moment for our country, and we cannot let it pass by using third rate ‘leaders’ to dictate our future!”
The post Donald Trump slams Mitch McConnell: ‘He doesn’t have what it takes’ first appeared on Conservative Institute.
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