Donald Trump-Mitch McConnell dispute threatens Republicans’ path to power

Former US President Donald Trump is escalating a political war within his own party that could undermine the Republican drive to fight President Joe Biden’s agenda and, ultimately, the opportunity to return the party to power. .

A day after criticizing Mitch McConnell, the top Senate Republican, as a “grim, sullen and serious political stunt,” Trump today repeated his baseless claim that he was the rightful winner of the November election in a series of interviews with conservative media after almost a month of self-imposed silence.

Trump continued to attack McConnell, accusing the Senate Republican leader of failing to stand up for Republicans after McConnell criticized Trump for inciting the January 6 riots in the U.S. Capitol despite voting to acquit the former president in his second impeachment.

“Republicans are soft. They only hit their own, like Mitch,” Trump complained on Newsmax. “If they spent the same time hitting (Senate Democratic Leader Chuck) Schumer and (President Joe) Biden, Republicans would be much better off, I can tell you that.”

Republican officials in several battlefield states led by Biden, including Georgia and Arizona, have said the vote was fair. Trump’s legal claims surrounding the vote were rejected by judges from across the political spectrum, including many appointed by the former president. McConnell himself described Trump’s claim as a “deranged falsehood.”

Leading Republican strategists described the explosive feud between the former Republican president and the most powerful Republican in the Senate as, at best, a distraction and, at worst, a direct threat to the party’s path toward majorities in the US. House and Senate in the midterm elections next year.

“I don’t think he cares about winning,” Steven Law, a McConnell ally who leads Washington’s most powerful Republican-aligned super PAC, said of Trump. “He just wants it to be about himself.”

Law noted that Trump lost several states where Republicans face Senate elections they must win in next year’s quest to break Democratic control of Congress, including in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Republicans also compete in Nevada and New Hampshire, where Trump was defeated, and in North Carolina, where Trump barely won.

If Trump tries to become “the center of attention,” Law said, “that could cost Republicans seats in the general election.”

Such infighting is not entirely unusual after a political party loses the White House, but in this case, the warring factions have been willing to attack each other publicly. And today there was broad consensus that the nasty intraparty clash would likely drag on well into next year’s Congressional primary season.

However, the stakes may be higher this time, as key players, including Trump, have openly threatened the possibility of creating a new political party, putting the very existence of the Republican Party in jeopardy.

About 120 anti-Trump Republicans, including current and former officials, met in secret earlier this month to contemplate the future of the Republican Party. A plurality, or 40 percent, supported the idea of ​​creating a new party, according to an internal poll provided by one of the meeting’s organizers, former independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin.

“There is a lot of energy for something new,” McMullin said, encouraging Trump to follow through on his threats to create a Patriot Party. “Frankly, I would welcome him to start a new match and take his most loyal fans with him. I think it would be a wonderful thing for the party and the country.”

Trump’s plans for the future are still taking shape in West Palm Beach, Florida.

He has been banned from Facebook and Twitter for inciting violence, but today he broke his month-long silence and gave his first interviews since leaving the White House following the death of conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh.

At Newsmax, Trump said his team was still exploring its options for going back to social media and “negotiating with multiple people,” while still keeping the option of building its own platform on the table.

“We’re looking at a lot of different things, but I really wanted to be a bit quiet,” Trump said, sidestepping repeated questions about whether he intends to run again in 2024.

“It’s too early to say,” he said, although he acknowledged that he missed being president.

Still, Trump said he has had no problem communicating when he wants to by issuing statements, and has made it clear this week that he will not quietly withdraw.

The former president launched a series of personal insults at McConnell in a fierce statement written today. Mainstream Republicans were perhaps more concerned about his threat to back primary rivals against Republican candidates who do not fully embrace his “Make America Great Again” philosophy.

Some feared that Trump might encourage Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to run for Senate, although there was no evidence for that. The fears date back to the Republican Party’s struggle a decade ago when a handful of wealthy Tea Party candidates emerged from their Senate primaries and prevented the Republican Party from regaining a majority.

In Indiana, Richard Mourdock defeated six-term senator Richard Lugar in the 2012 primaries, but imploded after a debate in which he said that pregnancy resulting from rape “is something that God intended.” In Missouri, Republican candidate Todd Akin lost after insisting on a local talk show that women’s bodies have ways to prevent pregnancy in “legitimate rape.”

And in Delaware, Tea Party front-runner Christine O’Donnell beat out a longtime Republican congresswoman before losing by an overwhelming majority in the 2010 general election, following reports of personal financial hardship, questionable use of campaign funds. and accusations that he had “dabbled in witchcraft.” .

Now that Trump has strengthened an equally populist movement, Republicans need to recruit candidates who can navigate a pro-Trump primary and maintain appeal across the state without alienating established-minded donors. It is not an easy task.

The Republican campaign arm of the Senate, led by Florida Sen. Rick Scott, will not participate in the open primaries. But McConnell’s advisers haven’t ruled out the possibility, even if it draws Trump’s ire.

“You can’t let the insanity go unchecked or it will eat you alive,” said Josh Holmes, a senior McConnell political adviser.

“He just wants to win,” he said of McConnell. “If it has to act as a heat shield, so be it.”

Meanwhile, Trump broke his month-long media blackout today, calling Fox News, Newsmax and OANN and repeating what Democrats have called his “big lie”: his insistence that he won the 2020 election, despite the fact that lost to Biden by millions of votes. .

Dozens of judges, local election officials and even his own administration have said there was no evidence of massive voter fraud, but that hasn’t stopped Trump from saying yes, even after the riot at the Capitol building that left five dead.

“Well, Rush thought we won. And so did I, by the way. I think we won substantially,” Trump told Fox.

He did not call McConnell by name, but acknowledged critics within his own party: “We don’t have the same support at certain levels of the Republican system.”

Meanwhile, Law tried to minimize Trump’s grip on the Republican Party. He noted that Trump’s approval rating among Republican voters, close to 80 percent, ranks at a similar mark to that of former President George W Bush after the Iraq war and 2007 financial meltdown.

The focus in the next election cannot be Trump, he said.

“We will do everything we can to get Joe Biden and the Pelosi-Schumer Congress into focus. We can win with that,” Law said. “The challenge is whether Trump finds a way to become the center of attention next fall.”