As of this Tuesday, ex-President Donald Trump hadn’t spoken publicly into a camera or microphone in over three weeks and counting, but he’s made his voice heard through other means. On Tuesday, he issued an angry and rambling statement in which he harshly criticized Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) after the top Republican directly blamed Trump for recent deadly rioting at the Capitol building.
Trump just released a very long statement attacking Mitch McConnell.
The one line that matters: "Mitch is a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack, and if Republican Senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again."
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 16, 2021
In his new statement against McConnell, the pathological self-obsession that Trump put on display is laughably astounding. For example, he claimed that he “single-handedly saved at least 12 Senate seats, more than eight in the 2020 cycle alone” — which is just not a reasonable assessment of recent political circumstances, at all. Does Trump seriously expect people to believe that Democrats would have won a Senate seat in Kentucky — where McConnell has been in power since 1985 — without his intervention in the race? Trump’s endorsements weren’t some kind of magical pixie dust that made Republican candidates suddenly win. Pretending like the endorsements are the only relevant factors is laughable.
Trump ranted, in part, as follows:
‘The Republican Party can never again be respected or strong with political ‘leaders’ like Sen. Mitch McConnell at its helm. McConnell’s dedication to business as usual, status quo policies, together with his lack of political insight, wisdom, skill, and personality, has rapidly driven him from Majority Leader to Minority Leader, and it will only get worse. 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!’
Going on, Trump reiterated his delusional claims about widespread election fraud, which is astounding, considering the fact that these claims culminated in deadly rioting at the U.S. Capitol last month. Referring to last month’s Georgia Senate elections, Trump dubiously claimed that “Many Republicans in Georgia voted Democrat, or just didn’t vote, because of their anguish at their inept Governor, Brian Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and the Republican Party, for not doing its job on Election Integrity during the 2020 Presidential race.”
In a style reminiscent of his often ridiculous Twitter account, Trump got more personal, adding as follows:
‘Mitch is a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack, and if Republican Senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again. He will never do what needs to be done, or what is right for our Country. Where necessary and appropriate, I will back primary rivals who espouse Making America Great Again and our policy of America First. We want brilliant, strong, thoughtful, and compassionate leadership.’
Click on the post below to see Trump’s full belligerent statement:
Donald Trump just put out a very long statement through his "Save America PAC" attacking @LeaderMcConnell.
The lede: "The Republican Party can never again be respected or strong with political 'leaders' like Sen. Mitch McConnell at its helm." pic.twitter.com/NXIsHnJxzB
— Eli Yokley (@eyokley) February 16, 2021
