MAR-A-LAGO, FL – Former President Donald J. Trump unleased an unexpected written salvo against GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday afternoon, accusing the Kentucky Republican of being a “dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack” and pledging to “back primary rivals” of elected Republicans “where necessary and appropriate.”
“In 2020, I received the most votes of any sitting President in history, almost 75,000,000. Every incumbent House Republican won for the first time in decades, and we flipped 15 seats, almost costing Nancy Pelosi her job. Republicans won majorities in at least 59 of the 98 partisan legislative chambers, and the Democrats failed to flip a single legislative chamber from red to blue,” boasted the ex-president under ‘Save America PAC’ digital letterhead. “And in “Mitch’s Senate,” over the last two election cycles, I single-handedly saved at least 12 Senate seats, more than eight in the 2020 cycle alone—and then came the Georgia disaster, where we should have won both U.S. Senate seats, but McConnell matched the Democrat offer of $2,000 stimulus checks with $600. How does that work? It became the Democrats’ principal advertisement, and a big winner for them it was. McConnell then put himself, one of the most unpopular politicians in the United States, into the advertisements. 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.”
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McConnell voted against convicting Trump in last week’s impeachment trial vote, but he has also declared that his “no” vote was based solely on his belief that the proceeding was unconstitutional.
“There is no question former President Trump bears moral responsibility,” McConnell wrote in a Monday WSJ op-ed. “His supporters stormed the Capitol because of the unhinged falsehoods he shouted into the world’s largest megaphone. His behavior during and after the chaos was also unconscionable, from attacking Vice President Mike Pence during the riot to praising the criminals after it ended.”
Tuesday’s email stokes Republican concerns that their chances of retaking the U.S. House in 2022 could be undermined by a protracted civil war between the Trump faction and the anti-Trump faction.
It’s unclear who Trump plans to support in forthcoming GOP primaries, but Georgia’s Brian Kemp faces reelection in 2022 along with several members of Congress who voted against him in the recent impeachment proceedings.
McConnell’s current term isn’t up until January 2027.
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