Ex President Donald Trump is now doing his best to make his move against McConnell, who is probably one of the biggest RINOs out there, and thatâs saying something, considering how the RINO field seems to increase every single year. Every. Single. Year.
The opening salvo for Trump was during a $400,000 a plate GOP fundraiser where the former POTUS was the main speaker last April. Basically, while Trump gives McConnell credit for voting to acquit him during the Capitol riots, he still called him a “dumb son of a bitch” and said that he should have been grateful when he appointed his wife Elaine Chao to be his transportation secretary.
“I hired his wife,” he said. “You would think that he would have been grateful.”
Trump proceeded to attack McConnell for several months after that April event, capping it off in a Trump-led effort to oust him.
This week alone, former President Trump has issued several official statements totally lambasting McConnell, saying that this GOP leader has “saved the Democrats” because of his insistence to strike a deal to raise the debt ceiling, causing some consternation in the Senate GOP.
The barrage of attacks against McConnell have also been intensified by Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, who have been going after the GOP leader since last fall. Indeed, it was only a few weeks ago that Carlson said on his show that he was going to start putting McConnell under a microscope, calling him an “instrument of the left.”
To date, there has been no one in the GOP who has had the courage to stand up against the abuses of McConnell except for Trump and a few senate candidates. Kelly Tshibaka is an Alaska Republican who is going after Lisa Murkowski, and Eric Greitens is the former Governor of Missouri who is going after the Missouri Senate seat that is going to be vacated by retiring Senator Roy Blunt.
âYouâre going to see a whole lot of leaders in the Senate, like me, not support Mitch McConnell for leadership because heâs anything but a leader,â said Tshibaka, who is taking on one of Trumpâs top targets in the chamber.
Tshibaka, who made the declaration Monday on Steve Bannonâs âWar Roomâ podcast, is so far the only Trump-endorsed candidate to publicly reject McConnell. Greitens, who in September became the first 2022 Senate candidate to promise that he was going to oppose McConnell as leader, also did it on Bannonâs popular conservative show. Trump has so far not endorsed anyone in the Missouri race.
In an interview, Murkowski said she supports McConnellâs leadership and showed disapproval for Tshibakaâs tactics: âThereâs probably a national playbook for campaigns; I donât think Alaskans play by a national playbook.â
This hesitation from the GOP comes despite the fact that Trump is still the de-facto leader of the Republican party with an 83% approval rating among party members.
Hopefully, the day comes when more individuals come out against McConnell and realize that he just isn’t the answer for the Republican party or for the future of this nation.