Trump, in Scorching Attack on McConnell, Urges G.O.P. to Replace Him

 The former president, breaking an unusually long silence, called the Senate minority leader a “dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack” and called on Republicans in the chamber to find a new leader.


Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

By Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Martin

ormer President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday made a slashing and lengthy attack on Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, calling him a “dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack” and arguing that the party would suffer losses in the future if he remained in charge.

“If Republican senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again,” Mr. Trump said.

The 600-word statement, coming three days after the Senate acquitted him in his second impeachment trial, was trained solely on Mr. McConnell and sought to paint Mr. Trump as the best leader of the G.O.P. going forward.

The statement did not include any sign of contrition from Mr. Trump for his remarks to a crowd of supporters who then attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. Nor did it include any acknowledgment of his role during the violent hours in which his own vice president and members of Congress were under threat from the mob of Trump supporters.

Rather, Mr. Trump chose to focus on Mr. McConnell as he broke an unusually lengthy silence by his standards, after being permanently barred from his formerly favorite medium — Twitter — last month because of tweets that he posted during the Capitol riot.

Trump, in Scorching Attack on McConnell, Urges G.O.P. to Replace Him

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What did Trump’s 2nd impeachment accomplish?

  That’s happening Former President Donald Trump was  acquitted  by the Senate on Saturday of the charge that he incited the insurrection on Jan. 6. The impeachment trial ended with 57 senators, including  seven Republicans , finding Trump guilty — well short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict. Over the course of a  week of testimony , House impeachment managers laid out the case that Trump was directly responsible for the deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol carried out by a mob of his supporters. Trump’s attorneys countered by arguing that his baseless claims of election fraud were protected by the First Amendment and that the Senate lacked the constitutional authority to convict a president who was no longer in office. Several GOP senators cited the latter argument in explaining their decision to acquit. Senate Minority Leader  Mitch McConnell  said Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the violence at the Capitol in a scathing speech following the final vote,
Read more

Special counsel Jack Smith asks the Supreme Court to rule quickly on whether Trump can be prosecuted

Image
  WASHINGTON (AP) —   Special counsel Jack Smith   on Monday asked   the Supreme Court   to take up and rule quickly on whether former President Donald Trump can be prosecuted on charges he plotted to overturn the 2020 election results. Smith made his request for the court to act with unusual speed to prevent any delays that could push back  the trial  of the 2024 Republican presidential primary front-runner, currently set to begin March 4, until after next year’s presidential election. Later Monday, the justices indicated they would decide quickly whether to hear the case, ordering Trump’s lawyers to respond by Dec. 20. The court’s brief order did not signal what it ultimately would do. A federal judge ruled the case could go forward, but Trump said he would ask the federal appeals court in Washington to reverse that outcome. Smith is attempting to bypass the appeals court, the usual next step in the process, and have the Supreme Court take up the matter directly. “This case presents
Read more

Paul Ryan: On losing and moving on

Spinners and Winners In his first national television interview since the 2012 election, Congressman Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., better known as the vice presidential nominee, says losing came as something of a surprise. "We thought we had a very good chance of winning. You know, the polling and the data and all the people who are the smart people who watch this stuff -- they had a pretty optimistic view on the night," says Ryan. "So as you can imagine, it was a bit of a shock when we didn't win." But as soon as the final numbers on Virginia and Ohio began coming in, says Ryan, "we knew." In an interview earlier this week in Wisconsin, the congressman said one reason Obama won was because his campaign drove up turnout in urban areas. "I'll let the pundits decide exactly how he won," says Ryan. "The point is, he got more votes than we did. That's how he won." The voter turnout for Obama went beyond urban areas, the president a
Read more