CNN —
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell offers a scathing assessment of the modern Republican Party in his upcoming biography, calling the “MAGA movement completely wrong,” and President Ronald Reagan today calling the party “recognized.” Probably not.”
“I think Trump was the biggest factor in changing the Republican Party from the way Ronald Reagan viewed it, but I don’t think he would recognize that today,” McConnell told The Associated Press’ Michael Tackett in an interview previously obtained by CNN. He talked about his upcoming biography, “The Price of Power.” Its release.
McConnell added that the former president “did tremendous damage to the image and competitiveness of our party.”
“Trump is appealing to and providing excuses for people who are not as successful as others, that these more successful people are being cheated in some way, and that just because things aren’t going well, they don’t deserve it.” I mean, you have no right to think that you haven’t been successful.”It wasn’t fair,” he said.
Some of McConnell’s strongest comments focused on Trump’s actions after losing the 2020 election, calling him “insane.”
“Unfortunately, about half of the Republicans in the country believe everything he says,” McConnell told oral historians at the time, adding: It will leave on January 20th, but so will the Republican Party. ” For the book, Mr. McConnell granted Mr. Tackett access to his personal archives, including the oral history he has recorded since 1995.
Republican leaders ultimately voted to acquit Trump in his second impeachment trial, which focused on the former president’s involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. But Tackett’s report said McConnell at one point was leaning toward voting for conviction.
“I have no ambivalence about whether the president’s conduct is an impeachable offense. I think it is. Inciting an insurrection and people attacking the Capitol as a direct result of it probably Barring the possibility that he was an agent of another country, this is about as close to an impeachable crime as you can imagine,” McConnell said.
“I don’t know if you can make a conclusive argument that he was directly responsible for them storming the Capitol, but if he hadn’t asked them to come, those people would have “I don’t think there’s any dispute that the president would not have been here,” and to prevent the actual acceptance of the election results,” the Senate Republican leader said.
The Kentucky Republican didn’t mince words, calling President Trump a “scumbag” and “narcissist” and saying the former president is “as ill-tempered as he is stupid.” He added that Trump is “not very smart, short-tempered, mean, and pretty much all the qualities you wouldn’t want someone to have.”
He dismissed Trump’s attacks on him, saying, “Every time he fires at me, I think it’s good for my reputation,” but Trump’s wife, Elaine Chao, a former transportation secretary, said: He added that the former president’s attacks on the United States went too far. .
In 2022, President Trump referred to Chao as McConnell’s “China-loving wife, Coco Chow” in a post on Truth Social. Tackett reported that Chao was “very upset” by the comment, and McConnell said his wife was “not used to being punched.”
Tackett also reported that McConnell cried while addressing staff in the hours after the Capitol attack. “You are my staff and my responsibility,” he told them. “You’re my family. I’m so sorry you had to go through this.”
He called the rioters who invaded the Senate chamber “as narcissistic as Donald Trump, who is taking pictures of themselves in the Vice President’s chair,” calling it “a shocking event. It’s further proof that Donald Trump is completely unfit for public office.”
Regarding his comments about former President Trump in his book, McConnell said in a statement to CNN, “No matter what I say about President Trump, what J.D. Vance, Lindsey Graham and others say about President Trump… It pales in comparison, but we’re all the same.” We’re on the same team now. ”
The Senate Republican leader and the former president have long had a rocky relationship, which Tackett details in his book. But McConnell has supported Trump and met with him in June when Trump met with Senate Republicans off the Hill.
McConnell did not limit his comments to the former president in his biography. He also became a candidate for Senate Republican leadership after criticizing Sen. Rick Scott, who led the Senate Republican campaign committee in the 2022 midterm elections and proposed highly controversial policy proposals that were criticized by both parties. failed to challenge Mr. McConnell. Mr. Scott has announced that he will run for leadership again this year, but this time he will not be running against Mr. McConnell, who is stepping down as leader.
“I don’t think Rick would make a very good victim,” McConnell quipped. “I think he did a terrible job running the (Senate Campaign) Committee. His plan was used against our candidates by the Democrats as late as last weekend (before the election). He promoted the fiction that we were in the middle of a housecleaning without any concrete evidence, and his campaign against me was a kind of attempt to shift attention away from him and onto someone else. I think it was an unfortunate effort.”
McConnell will remain Senate Republican leader until the end of the year and until the new Congress begins in early January.
The Kentucky Republican previously said he was most proud of his work in shaping the Supreme Court during the Trump era and leading efforts to confirm three new conservative justices. Justice Clarence Thomas admitted he had “made some very questionable judgments” in handing down his next sentence. Accept travel from major Republican donors. “But again, I don’t know what the rules are,” he added.
Asked in April 2023 about reports about the trip, McConnell accused Democratic senators of launching a political attack against Thomas. “The Supreme Court and the court system are completely separate parts of our Constitution,” he said. “And it seems to me that Democrats are spending a lot of time criticizing individual members of the court and going after the court as an institution.”
Mr. McConnell had previously praised Mr. Thomas’ decision and work on the court. “I have full confidence in Judge Thomas’ impartiality in all aspects of the Court’s work,” he said on the Senate floor in 2022, before reports of Judge Thomas’ travel came to light.
McConnell also expressed support for Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Trump’s actions surrounding the 2020 election and insurrection. “I think this song was the single in this category of singles that best showed how wrong everything is. There’s no question who inspired this song. He paid for it. I just hope we don’t have to pay,” McConnell said. “If he hasn’t committed an indictable crime, I don’t know what is.”
CNN’s Manu Raju and Ted Barrett contributed to this report.
