The war for the future of the Republican Party has already begun. The visible head of a block is the expresidente Donald Trump and in the other has now been located Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republicans in the Senate, the most powerful conservative in recent years in Washington and who, during the Trump era, acted as a motor and brake on the tycoon’s political agenda. The 78-year-old Kentucky senator exonerated Trump Saturday in the trial for him impeachment, but delivered a devastating speech against the ex-president, whom he blamed for assault on Capitol. Trump reacted this Tuesday in a statement calling him “a surly, sad and gloomy politician”, and assuring that they will never win again with leaders like him.
The writing transpires that old fury of those Twitter messages that now, muted on social media, they have disappeared. Instead of replying to McConnell’s words the same Saturday afternoon in a string of tweets, the response has been delayed three days, but it has served him to expand. Trump credits McConnell for losing the Republican majority in the upper house. The Democrats managed to win on January 5 the two seats of a conservative stronghold like the southern state of Georgia and being tied 50 to 50 in the Senate, which translates into a de facto Democratic control, since the vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, has the vote that decides in the event of a tie.
“The Republican Party will not win again or be respected or strong with ‘leaders’ like Senator Mitch McConnell at the helm. McConnell’s dedication to politics as always, his lack of vision, knowledge, skill and personality has quickly taken him from majority leader to minority leader and this is only going to get worse, ”Trump said in his statement.
McConnell is one of the Capitol’s oldest senators, has held his seat for Kentucky since 1985 and was re-elected in the last elections, those of November 3, with which he has the position assured until 2026, when he will be 83 years old. He is, therefore, a politician with little to fear. When Republicans regained control of the Senate in 2015, he became the Republican Majority Leader of the powerful House. Thus, he served as fronton for the Obama Administration and for Trump himself, who he stopped, for example, with public funding to the construction of the wall with Mexico. He proudly bore the nickname “the grim reaper” because he was the one who killed the laws that came to him from the Democrats.
While Trump waved the hoax of electoral fraud to deny Joe Biden’s winHe was silent for months, but in December he abandoned the tycoon and, after the attack on Congress on January 6, went on to attack. “These criminals carried their banners, waved their flags and shouted their loyalty to him,” he said this Saturday, despite voting not guilty on the charge of incitement to insurrection, in the Senate trial.
McConnell argued that a impeachment should be used to remove presidents from office and that, with Trump already out of the White House, he could be prosecuted by the ordinary justice in case of crime, despite the fact that the offense had still been committed as president (the change of Government took place last day 20). “There is no doubt that the president is practically and morally responsible for events,” he concluded.
This Tuesday, Trump struck back. He assured that McConnell is “destroying” the Republican Senate caucus and, with it, “seriously damaging” the United States. He regretted supporting him in his last campaign for the Senate. “He begged me,” he said, and without him, “I would have lost badly.” In addition, he accused him of doing “nothing” in the face of the economic and military threat posed by China because his family has “important businesses” in the country. McConnell is married to Elaine Chao, a Taipei-born businesswoman who was Secretary of Employment with Bush Jr. and whom Trump has appointed Secretary of Transportation for his Administration. It was the time of cordiality. In January, after the assault on Congress, he was one of the top officials who resigned in protest.
The scuffle reflects the great rift that the Trump era and its tense end has opened in the Republican Party. 10 congressmen from the House of Representatives voted to submit it to a impeachment and seven senators convicted him. Never has an impeachment of a president garnered so much support from his own party, despite not adding the two-thirds majority required for conviction. Trump still plays a very influential role on the ground, however. A Politico and Morning Consult poll published on Tuesday shows that, if the Republican primaries were held today, Trump would pay with 59% of the vote, compared to other names that sound like likely candidates for the 2024 presidential elections, such as Mike Pence or Nikki Haley.
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