Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) has tried to mend his relationship with former President Trump, but newly reported comments reveal how deeply his personal animosity toward Trump ran after the 2020 election and signal the challenges GOP senators could have in working with Trump if he is elected again.
Many Republican senators who have been critical of Trump in the past, including McConnell, have made a show of loyalty since he became the party’s nominee for president.
But McConnell laid bare some of the real feelings in the Senate GOP conference toward Trump when he revealed in an oral history at the end of 2020 that he viewed Trump as “stupid,” “ill-tempered,” “a despicable human being” and a “narcissist.”
He also hinted that Trump was viewed negatively by a broader swatch of the GOP conference, asserting “it’s not just the Democrats who [were] counting the days” until Trump left office in January 2021.
His remarks were reported in a new McConnell biography penned by Michael Tackett, deputy Washington bureau chief for The Associated Press, titled “The Price of Power,” which is due for public release later this month.
McConnell’s comments signal there will be lingering tensions — and some level of mutual distrust — between a significant number of Republican senators and Trump if he returns to the White House next year.
“A lot of the Senate Republican allies are not strong allies,” said Brian Darling, a Republican strategist and former Senate aide.
“There are lingering bad feelings between Trump and the Republican establishment, and it is exemplified by McConnell’s comments. That is going to exist if Trump wins the election and has to deal with Republicans in the Senate. It’s not going to be as friendly as with Republicans in the House, who are going to be much more amenable to Trump’s leadership,” the strategist added.
Three Republican senators who voted to convict Trump at his second impeachment trial in February 2021 will return to the Senate next year: Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Bill Cassidy (La.).
There are other Republicans who have made it clear over the years that they’re not big fans of Trump’s provocative antics, including Sens. Mike Rounds (S.D.) and Todd Young (Ind.). Rounds initially endorsed Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) for president, and Young said in March he would not support Trump in 2024.
Other Republican senators have criticized Trump privately but have been careful not to say anything publicly to provoke his wrath.
While McConnell is retiring as Senate Republican leader at the end of the year, he will continue to wield a lot of influence in the Senate GOP conference after leading it for 18 years, the longest tenure of any Senate party leader in history.
And next year’s Senate GOP leadership will be made up of his closest allies, including most of his current leadership team.
Two of the Republican senators running to become the next leader, Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) and Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), the former whip, are both McConnell allies and have a history of criticizing Trump.
Both Republicans, however, have pledged to work closely with Trump as leader if he serves another term in the White House.
The senator expected to become the next Senate GOP whip, Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.), is also a McConnell ally, as are the two senators vying to become next Senate GOP conference chair: Sens. Joni Ernst (Iowa) and Tom Cotton (Ark.).
The only Republican senator vying for a top leadership slot who is not a close McConnell ally is Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.), who is closely aligned with Trump and challenged McConnell for his job after the 2022 election.
Scott on Thursday said McConnell’s reported comments should ring alarm bells for Trump and his supporters.
“If these comments from Mitch McConnell are true, it’s the clearest evidence we have exposing the Swamp for who they truly are,” he said in a statement to The Hill.
“We’ve seen the Washington Establishment work to block President Trump’s America First agenda and oppose the will of the millions of Republican voters that support it,” he said.
“We need a Republican Senate leader who is an ally and a partner of Donald Trump and will work with him to deliver for the American people, secure the border and rein in wasteful spending. It’s why I ran for leader in 2022 and it’s why I’m running again this year,” he said.
Former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who served on McConnell’s leadership team during his Senate career, said there’s no doubt that McConnell strongly dislikes Trump but argued he would still be able to work with the former president.
“I think he’s probably expressing his actual opinion, and he probably felt at that time that he wouldn’t have to deal with him any longer as a president. He bit his tongue while he had [to] deal with him,” Gregg said.
“If Trump’s elected president, the senators are going to work with him. It’s that simple. They have no choice, and they will,” he said. “Senate Republicans will work with him. There are lots of people you don’t get along with and in some cases that you genuinely dislike. …. That’s just a fact of life.”
“The Senate just does not work if you take things personally,” he added.
McConnell defended his comments by pointing out Thursday that some of Trump’s closest allies, including Sens. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), have criticized the former president harshly in the past.
“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,” he said in a statement.
Vance publicly mocked Trump as an “idiot” and “reprehensible” before the 2016 presidential election. Privately, he called him “America’s Hitler.”
The Ohio senator, who is now Trump’s running mate, also called him “cultural heroin” and “just another opioid” for Americans struggling with life’s challenges.
Vance has since recanted those critical statements and has embraced Trump wholeheartedly, declaring contritely: “I was wrong about Donald Trump.”
Graham, who for years has been one of Trump’s closest allies in the Senate, declared after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that he was finished with Trump.
“All I can say is: Count me out. Enough is enough,” he said on the Senate floor.
Yet he too came back to Trump’s side and is once again among his most outspoken defenders in the Senate.
McConnell tried to squash his beef with Trump in June when they met for the first time in years at the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s headquarters on Capitol Hill.
McConnell sat near Trump at a meeting with the entire Senate GOP conference and made an effort to shake his hand and chat with him.
Trump returned the gesture by speaking “favorably” about McConnell, according to a senator who attended.
The goodwill gestures were mainly for show, as both Trump and McConnell knew they needed to work together to win back the White House and Senate. Sources who know McConnell say his willingness to stifle criticisms about Trump is purely practical.
“This is completely transactional and obligatory. I believe he sees his role as party leader to support the nominee of the party, and when he did that he cited the wishes of the voters. He made clear that he didn’t have much of an alternative if he wanted to remain party leader in both name and effect,” Al Cross, a journalism professor at the University of Kentucky and a longtime commentator on McConnell’s career, said regarding the senator’s endorsement of Trump for the presidency in March.
When McConnell endorsed Trump for president after Super Tuesday, the Senate GOP leader said “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.”
He later pointed out to reporters that he said as early as February 2021, shortly after the second impeachment trial, that he would support the Republican nominee for president, even if it was Trump.
