Category: 2024election

McConnell’s still whining about Trump—even though he voted for him

Posted on by Emily Singer

Outgoing Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell once again sat for an interview in which he crapped all over Donald Trump, warning that the president-elect’s foreign policy ideas pose a danger not only to the United States but to the whole world.

In an interview with the Financial Times, McConnell said Trump and the Republican Party's isolationist views are a threat, as “the cost of deterrence is considerably less than the cost of war."

“To most American voters, I think the simple answer is, ‘Let’s stay out of it.’ That was the argument made in the ’30s and that just won’t work,” McConnell told the Financial Times. “Thanks to [Ronald] Reagan, we know what does work—not just saying peace through strength, but demonstrating it.”

Yet in that very same interview, McConnell admitted that he voted for Trump anyway.

“I supported the ticket,” McConnell said, refusing to even utter Trump's name.

What’s more, McConnell declined to say whether he should have done more to stop Trump from becoming president for the second time. McConnell had the chance to prevent Trump from running for president again during the Senate impeachment trial over Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021. McConnell voted to acquit Trump, even though he said Trump was responsible for the insurrection at the Capitol that sought to overturn the free and fair election of Joe Biden.

It's not the first time McConnell has spoken ill of Trump. In October, excerpts from a McConnell biography were released in which McConnell called Trump “stupid,” a “narcissist,” and a “despicable human being." 

Yet despite thinking Trump is an awful person, McConnell endorsed Trump's 2024 comeback as he made those same attacks against the leader of the Republican Party.

“It is abundantly clear that former President Trump has earned the requisite support of Republican voters to be our nominee for President of the United States. It should come as no surprise that as nominee, he will have my support," McConnell said in March.

But McConnell's hypocrisy is not a surprise. Earlier in December, McConnell accused federal judges of playing politics by reneging on their decisions to retire in order to prevent Trump from choosing their replacements. But McConnell wrote the book on playing politics with the courts, as he stole a Supreme Court seat from former President Barack Obama, as well as a number of other judicial seats on lower courts. 

He also blocked a bicameral commission to probe the Jan. 6 insurrection, even though he believed Trump was responsible for the riot that led to the assault of more than 140 law enforcement officers.

While McConnell won’t be part of Senate GOP leadership next year, he is sticking around Capitol Hill. He claimed to the Financial Times that without the constraints of being in leadership, he will now push back on Trump and his own party’s isolationist policies.

“No matter who got elected president, I think it was going to require significant pushback, yeah, and I intend to be one of the pushers,” McConnell said.

But given that he’s always capitulated to Trump, color us skeptical. 

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Senate leader vote could indicate troubles ahead for Trump and MAGA

Posted on by Emily Singer

Rick Scott of Florida was ousted from the race for Senate Republican leader on Wednesday, losing on the first ballot of the race to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell.

Scott garnered just 13 votes from the 51 Republicans voting in the first round.

His poor performance came even as Scott had the endorsement of MAGA loyalists, including Elon Musk, the freak right-wing billionaire who is acting as a sort of shadow president-elect. And let’s not forget MAGA media personalities like racist 9/11 truther Laura Loomer, Russia apologist Tucker Carlson, bigot and misogynist Charlie Kirk, and plagiarist and Russia's useful idiot Benny Johnson.

“Rick Scott for Senate Majority Leader!” Musk wrote in a post on X, after Scott endorsed Trump’s demand to allow him to make recess appointments for his administration to bypass the Senate’s advice and consent role.

“Rick Scott of Florida is the only candidate who agrees with Donald Trump,” Carlson wrote in a post on X. “Call your senator and demand a public endorsement of Rick Scott."

"A vote for Rick Scott is a vote to END the anti-Trump rot of Mitch McConnell in the US Senate,” Johnson said on X. “Thune and Cornyn are a continuation of McConnell's total failure."

Those endorsements led Trump supporters to flood the phone lines of Senate Republicans, demanding that GOP senators vote for Scott in the leader race.

Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, one of the dumbest senators in history and a Scott supporter, said his office "phone has been ringing off the wall” from MAGA faithful who wanted Scott as leader.

But Scott, who was cocky in the run-up to the vote declaring that he was going to win, couldn't translate that into a victory among Senate Republicans. 

Republicans instead chose Sen. John Thune, the South Dakota Republican who currently serves as minority whip.

Thune won on the second ballot over Sen. John Cornyn of Texas by a vote of 29 to 24, Punchbowl News’ John Bresnahan reported.

Of the three men running, Thune has the rockiest relationship with Trump. Thune slammed Trump after the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021—though Thune ultimately voted against convicting Trump in the second impeachment trial for inciting insurrection. 

“What former President Trump did to undermine faith in our election system and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power is inexcusable,” Thune said at the time.

Trump was so angry at him for that remark that Trump called on Thune to face a primary, though he easily beat it back. The Wall Street Journal, however, reported in October that Thune has since been working to mend his relationship with Trump.

MAGA world is already threatening Thune to jump when Trump asks.

Kirk wrote on X: “John Thune is Senate Majority Leader. He has a short window to show us he will support President Trump, fill his cabinet, confirm his judges, and pass his agenda. If he does, we will support him. If he doesn't, we will work to remove him.”

Thune now replaces noxious Kentucky Republican McConnell, who announced in February he was stepping down from his leadership role but not the Senate itself.

McConnell is largely responsible for obliterating norms in Washington. He helped Republicans steal two Supreme Court seats from Democrats as well as a number of other federal judgeships he held vacant when Barack Obama was in office. He also used the filibuster to obstruct at a historic level and squandered the opportunity to rid the country of Trump when he refused to convict him in the Jan. 6 impeachment trial, among other things.

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The race to replace Mitch McConnell is on—and the worst one wins

Posted on by Emily Singer

Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky—who infamously stole two Supreme Court seats and refused to convict Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection—isn't leaving Congress.

But McConnell won't be Senate majority leader when the new GOP majority is sworn in in January, announcing in February that he was stepping down from the role when the new Congress is sworn in.

Republicans are now jockeying to replace him, with Sens. John Thune of South Dakota, John Cornyn of Texas, and Rick Scott of Florida all running for the role.

And the race is already getting ugly, with Scott working hardest to cozy up to Trump and his vile allies—including racist 9/11 truther Laura Loomer—in an effort to try to come out on top.

“I’m going to win. And here’s why. I’ve been talking to my Republican colleagues, Guess what? They want change. They know that Donald Trump has a mandate. They want to be part of that mandate. They want to be treated as equals. They want to be part of a team. They want to have a working relationship with the House,” he said in an interview with former Trump administration official and current Fox Business host Larry Kudlow on Wednesday.

On Monday, Scott also went on Fox News, saying he will end the “dictatorship” of McConnell’s long tenure as GOP leader.

People across this country are ready for change. As the next Senate Majority Leader, I’ll deliver that change. It’s time to Make Washington WORK! pic.twitter.com/GQsJQrDqNK

— Rick Scott (@ScottforFlorida) November 4, 2024

The Hill reported that Scott is seen as a long shot for the job, and that he could be ousted on the first ballot. Yet, that could change if Trump allies like Loomer are successful at getting Trump to endorse in the race. Scott appeared on Loomer’s podcast in October, after which Loomer endorsed Scott for Senate GOP leader.

“Sadly, there are a few bad people who have been around Donald Trump lately who are giving him terrible advice on who to support in this Senate GOP race so that his entire 2nd term is undermined by people who have always hated him,” Loomer wrote in a post on X, adding that Scott is “a true Trump loyalist and is someone we can trust to support Donald Trump.”  

Republicans have begged Trump to stay out of the race. However, all three candidates have been kissing up to the now president-elect in the lead up to the race, knowing that if Trump endorses it will likely help put that person over the edge.

Scott, who perpetrated one of the largest Medicare frauds in history, ran against McConnell in 2022 and lost, receiving just 10 votes from the GOP conference. But he's seen as the man closest to Trump among the three, and a Trump endorsement could change his fortunes.

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota

Thune, who is seen as the favorite in the race, has a rocky relationship with Trump, as Thune criticized Trump after he incited an insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. 

“What former President Trump did to undermine faith in our election system and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power is inexcusable,” Thune said at the time, even though he voted to acquit Trump in the impeachment trial after the insurrection. 

It led Trump to call for Thune to face a primary in Thune's reelection, though Thune easily beat back the primary opponent and won reelection.

The Wall Street Journal reported in October that Thune has been working to get back in Trump’s good graces. 

Cornyn has also been spending time with Trump during the campaign.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, a Thune backer, has publicly called on Trump not to endorse.

“I’d advise him just to stay out of the race,” Mullin told CNN.

But given Trump’s wildcard persona and inability to get over grudges, you never know what will happen.

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Here are 13 times right-wingers totally whiffed election predictions

Posted on by Oliver Willis

Conservatives—both media pundits and Republican officeholders—love to make election predictions. Curiously, most of those predictions tend to see an upside for Republicans. But many of the right’s most infamous predictions go wrong, spectacularly so. 

Here are 13 of the right’s worst predictions, plus one so wrong it had to be noted.

13. Karl Rove’s math

In the days ahead of the 2006 midterms, many of the early signs indicated that the Democrats would secure a majority in the House, largely based on opposition to the Iraq War. But Karl Rove, President George W. Bush’s political guru, was unmoved.

Appearing on NPR, Rove insisted, “I'm looking at all these, [NPR host] Robert [Siegel], and adding them up, and I add up to a Republican Senate and Republican House. You may end up with a different math, but you're entitled to your math, I'm entitled to the math.”

Democrats took the House, and Nancy Pelosi became the first woman to be elected speaker of the House. Democrats also took the Senate, and Nevada Sen. Harry Reid became the majority leader.

Famously, Bush later referred to the result of the election as a “thumping” for him and the rest of the GOP.

12. Dick Morris’ Romney landslide

In 2012, conservative pundit Dick Morris confidently predicted that then-President Barack Obama would lose in a “landslide” to Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Obama was ahead in most national polls at the time, but Morris argued in an appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity” that there was “zilch, zone, zip nada” chance that Obama would be reelected.

Obama won reelection in November 2012, winning 51% of the popular vote and 26 states plus Washington, D.C., securing 332 of the 270 electoral votes he needed to win.

11. Hugh Hewitt’s Romney win

Conservative columnist and radio host Hugh Hewitt, who recently rage-quit The Washington Post after a confrontation with the paper’s liberal columnists, was also on the Romney train. Hewitt even wrote a book early in the 2012 cycle entitled, “A Mormon In The White House?” speculating on a potential Romney victory. (If Romney had won, he would have been the first Mormon president.)

In National Review, Hewitt predicted that Romney would win Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Obama won all six states.

10. Kathleen Parker: America will be “fine” under Trump

In 2016, Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker said the United States would be “fine” if either Donald Trump or Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Four years later, nearly a quarter of a million people were dead due to COVID-19 while unemployment was over 6%, and Supreme Court justices who would later overturn Roe v. Wade were installed on the Supreme Court.

9. Arizona Gov. Kari Lake?

Kari Lake, running for governor in Arizona in 2022, told reporters she would not only win that year’s election but also be the media’s “worst frickin’ nightmare for eight years.” Lake lost her election—even though she has denied she lost for years—and is currently trailing Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego in this year’s Senate election.

8. Erick Erickson and Sen. Herschel Walker

Conservative pundit and radio host Erick Erickson confidently predicted in 2022 that Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker would soundly defeat Sen. Raphael Warnock, and by enough of a margin that a runoff election would be unnecessary.

Instead the Walker-Warnock race resulted in Warnock coming out ahead of Walker in November, triggering a runoff race the next month. In that one-on-one contest, Warnock won reelection with 51.4% of the vote.

7-3. The 2022 red wave that wasn’t

Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, the right convinced itself that a “red wave” would wipe out Democrats in the House. Instead, what occurred was more akin to a red trickle. While Republicans took a majority in the House, they flipped just 10 seats on net—far from the enormous victory the right expected. And since then, that majority has eroded, and Kevin McCarthy was ousted as speaker after an internal revolt. Republicans now hold a single-digit majority and are barely holding on.

Some notable punditry about the faux red wave:

  • Former Vice President Mike Pence: “The Red Wave is coming!”

  • McCarthy saw a red wave and large majorities on the way, and said so over and over.

  • Dick Morris (again!) said there would be a massive shift in power in favor of the GOP (and predicted a Senate boost that also failed to manifest).

  • For Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a wave was not enough: While campaigning with Republican candidates, Cruz insisted a “red tsunami” would soon show up.

  • Tucker Carlson, then a host at Fox News, took a break from racist rants and promised his viewers that Democrats were about to get “crushed.”

2. Condi vs. Hillary, according to Dick Morris

Dick Morris (yet again!) went all out ahead of the 2008 election, writing a book in 2005 that predicted both party’s nominees as “Hillary (Clinton) vs. Condi (Condoleezza Rice).

While Clinton did run in that cycle’s Democratic presidential primary, she lost to Obama. And in the 19 years since Morris’ prediction, Rice has never run for political office.

Special mention: Mark Halperin’s good news for John McCain

Journalist Mark Halperin is not openly conservative (though he has worked for right-wing network Newsmax), but before he left NBC News in a storm of sexual harassment allegations, he left a mark on the prediction game.

Throughout the 2008 campaign cycle, Halperin reliably found “good news” for Republican Sen. John McCain. The height of this came as Obama criticized McCain for not remembering how many homes he owned (as thousands of Americans were losing their homes in the foreclosure crisis). Halperin thought this would be a good moment … for McCain.

It was not. McCain lost to Obama by nearly 10 million votes.

1. The Wall Street Journal and Trump’s graceful concession

Ahead of the 2020 election, former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney wrote an opinion column in The Wall Street Journal that said if he lost, Trump would “concede gracefully.”

Not only did Trump infamously not accept his loss to Biden, but also Trump litigated the matter in court, has constantly whined about the topic since, and urged his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol building, leading to his second impeachment.

It would be difficult for any person or institution to get a prediction as wrong as Mulvaney’s column, but the right has shown that if anyone is up to the task, they are.

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Watch: Right-wing Washington Post columnist quits and walks off livestream

Posted on by Oliver Willis

Conservative radio host and columnist Hugh Hewitt has quit The Washington Post following a meltdown on a livestream during a discussion of Donald Trump’s election lies.

On Friday’s edition of the Post’s “Washington Post Live” stream, columnists Jonathan Capehart and Ruth Marcus spoke about efforts by Trump to sow doubt about the election process.

“We’re news people, even though it’s the opinion section,” Hewitt complained before noting the Trump campaign’s recently successful effort to extend application times in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

“I don’t appreciate being lectured about reporting when, Hugh, many times you come here saying lots of things that aren’t based on fact,” Capehart responded.

“I won’t come back, Jonathan,” Hewitt said, taking out his earpiece and walking off the broadcast.

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The New York Post later reported that Hewitt had quit his position at The Washington Post, where he has been a columnist for years.

Trump has constantly promoted conspiracy theories around elections and how votes are counted, repeatedly lying that he won elections that he lost. He has even lied about his loss in the popular vote in 2016 after he won the Electoral College.

Hewitt has spent years using his position in the media to shill for Trump, after noting in 2016 that Trump did not have “the temperament to be president” and that if he won the Republican Party’s nomination, he was like “Stage IV cancer.”

Hewitt also claimed in 2020 that it wasn’t a big deal that Trump paid a reported $750 in taxes despite purportedly being worth billions, and claimed that Trump’s attempt to use his  presidency to dig up dirt on Joe Biden before he ran that year was a “nothingburger.” Trump was later impeached for abusing his power.

Despite this kind of rhetoric, Hewitt was frequently employed by outlets like MSNBC, NBC News, and The Washington Post. He has also been a contributor to Fox News, where promoting Trump is a key part of the operation.

Hewitt’s confrontation with the Post comes on the same day that the Trump campaign filed a frivolous complaint with the Federal Elections Commission to complain about Facebook ads purchased by the paper to highlight its reporting.

The Post purchased those ads following backlash to the decision by billionaire Post owner Jeff Bezos against publishing an editorial endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. More than 250,000 subscribers have dropped the paper since the announcement.

When she was asked about Bezos’ decision, Harris noted that he is a member of the billionaire “club” that stands to disproportionately benefit from the policies Trump hopes to enact if he is elected president.

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Trump shares totally normal fantasy of Liz Cheney facing a firing squad

Posted on by Oliver Willis

 Donald Trump fantasized about guns being put in the face of former Rep. Liz Cheney during a campaign event on Thursday night.

“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her where the rifle’s standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about—you know when the guns are trained on her face,” Trump said.

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Cheney responded to Trump’s comments after the video was posted online.

“This is how dictators destroy free nations,” she wrote on X. “They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”

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Ian Sams, a senior adviser for the Harris-Walz campaign, slammed Trump’s remarks in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday morning.

“Think about the contrast between these two candidates: You have Donald Trump, who’s talking about sending a prominent Republican to the firing squad and you have Vice President [Kamala] Harris talking about sending one to her Cabinet,” Sams said.

Trump’s comments come just days after he attempted to cast himself as a “protector” of women, “whether the women like it or not.” The venue for Trump’s attack on Cheney was an interview with disgraced former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has a long history of misogynist remarks.

Trump has expressed anger at Cheney for crossing the aisle and endorsing Harris’ presidential campaign. Cheney has said she backs Harris, despite disagreeing with her on a host of issues, because Trump represents a threat to American democracy.

At a campaign event in Wisconsin in early October, Cheney specifically called out Trump’s actions during and after the Jan.6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“He praised the rioters. He did not condemn them. That’s who Donald Trump is.”

Cheney was the vice chair of the Jan. 6 congressional committee that investigated the attack and was one of only two Republicans (the other was former Rep. Adam Kinzinger) willing to cross the aisle to do so. She was later defeated in Wyoming’s Republican congressional primary by a pro-Trump Republican, Rep. Harriet Hageman.

Both Cheney and Kinzinger also voted to impeach Trump for his role in inciting the Capitol attack. The vote was Trump’s second impeachment.

The former representatives are joined by a host of former Republican officials—including some who served in Trump’s administration—who are now supporting Harris’ campaign. 

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Read it and weep, MAGA: Trump meets dictionary definition of fascist

Posted on by Oliver Willis

Retired Gen. John Kelly, Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff, created a stir when he told The New York Times in an interview that Donald Trump met the dictionary definition of a fascist. Soon after, Vice President Kamala Harris said she agreed with the assessment, as have several other former Trump White House staffers who worked with Kelly.

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Trump has repeatedly fumed about the moment, while his allies like House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have called on Democrats to stop echoing Kelly.

But a closer examination of the definition that Kelly appears to have cited, combined with Trump’s actions, behavior and rhetoric, show frequent examples of Trump living down to the standard cited by Kelly.

The dictionary with a definition that most closely matches Kelly’s argument is the Merriam-Webster definition of “fascism,” to which the page for “fascist” redirects.

Merriam-Webster: Fascism is “a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual.”

From early on in his time as a political figure, Trump branded the effort to elect him as the “America First” movement. And he has invoked populist rhetoric, such as promising (and failing) to open U.S. factories while jobs significantly declined on his watch.

Trump’s “America First” approach has been more accurately reflected in his habit of abandoning long-term allies, such as his rhetoric denigrating NATO nations during his presidency. Trump also put America alone when he chose to abandon the Paris agreement on climate change, reneging on the commitment made under former President Barack Obama’s administration. Trump also chose to launch a trade war with China under the “America First” philosophy, and the net result was a costly pursuit of policy that did not contribute to a growing economy and instead cost taxpayers over $230 billion.

Merriam-Webster: Fascism is about a “a centralized autocratic government.”

In his time in office, Trump used his presidential powers to create harmful policies without congressional input. His administration implemented an executive order which attempted to restrict travel to the United States from nations with large Muslim populations.

Under Trump, the Department of Homeland Security instituted the family separation policy that took young migrant children away from their families at an especially vulnerable time. The Trump administration also implemented policies like the “1776 Report,” which sought to purge narratives about marginalized voices from school curricula. He is tried to limit the use of federal funds to promote diversity initiatives.

Merriam-Webster: Fascism features “a dictatorial leader.”

Trump has admitted to this one, with his promise to be a dictator on “day one.” But even before he was first elected president, Trump complained about accurate reporting with a threat to pull broadcast licenses following unfavorable coverage. Trump has returned to this argument lately, pushing for CBS News to have its license revoked after the network said it would fact check him.

Merriam-Webster: Fascism is “characterized by severe economic and social regimentation.”

Perhaps the starkest example of this under Trump is the 6-3 decision by the conservative majority of the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, which has had the effect of rescinding abortion rights for millions of Americans. Trump praised the three justices he appointed, which made up half of that six-vote majority, for their purported “genius.”

He also infamously praised neo-Nazi protesters as “very fine people,” called on police to abuse people under arrest, and signed into law the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which disproportionately favored the ultrawealthy over the middle class.

Merriam-Webster: Fascism is about “forcible suppression of opposition.”

When he occupied the presidency, Trump had federal law enforcement tear-gas and forcibly remove protesters from Lafayette Square next to the White House so that he could pose before a nearby church while holding a Bible. In his capacity as president, Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate then-candidate Joe Biden and his family—an action that eventually led to Trump’s impeachment (the first of two).

In recent weeks—and at his racist Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday—Trump referred to his political opponents as the “enemy within” and has mused about using the military to go after them.

Trump’s actions and rhetoric bring clarity to Kelly’s remarks. No matter what the relationship between the two men was, the evidence shows Trump meeting the fascist definition line by line.

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House of pain: GOP launches new civil war in last days of the election

Posted on by Emily Singer

Less than two weeks remain until the election that will determine which political party controls the House of Representatives, but House Republicans are already battling over how they would run the chamber come January 2025.

Control of the House remains a toss-up, with forecasting models giving Democrats a slight edge to regain the majority. But if Republicans do maintain control, it looks like they will have a difficult time even agreeing on how to govern themselves, Politico reported. 

While Speaker Mike Johnson and his allies would gladly nuke the archaic “motion to vacate” rule, a small group of right-wing members wants to preserve the provision that allows a single member to force a vote to oust the speaker of the House, according to Politico. That same faction used this tool to boot Kevin McCarthy in October 2023, a mere 269 days after he was elected speaker following a humiliating 15-round voting marathon.

The latest report of infighting is just another embarrassing display from the GOP, which has barely been able to govern with a narrow majority.

When Republicans regained the House majority in 2023, the squabbling was so bad that barely any legislation was passed that year. The New York Times reported that the GOP majority passed just 27 bills that became law, far fewer than the 248 bills passed by a Democratic majority in 2022.

Republicans struggled to pass even basic messaging bills that reeked of partisanship. For example, it took multiple tries to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas—a sham impeachment that the Senate then rejected.

What’s more, GOP lawmakers have been fighting with each other—and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has been at the center of many of those fights.

Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado had a fight on the House floor, with Greene calling Boebert a “little bitch.”

Other Republicans then criticized Greene after she made an idiotic statement falsely blaming the government for creating Hurricane Helene to impact Republicans’ chances of winning the election.

Ultimately, the chaos and frustration GOP lawmakers created in the House caused a number of members on both sides of the aisle to announce their retirement earlier this year.

It’s time for adults to run the show and for voters to put Republicans back in the minority, where they belong.

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McConnell called Trump a stupid narcissist but will vote for him anyway

Posted on by Emily Singer

Proving that a broken clock is right twice a day, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell trashed former President Donald Trump in private following the 2020 election, calling Trump “stupid,” a “narcissist,” and a “despicable human being,” according to a soon-to-be-released biography of the Kentucky Republican.

McConnell’s frank assessments of the leader of the GOP were made in recorded diaries given to Michael Tackett, the Associated Press deputy Washington bureau chief, for his new McConnell biography titled “The Price of Power.” According to publisher Simon & Schuster, it’s based on “thousands of pages of archival materials, letters, and more than 100 interviews with associates, colleagues, and McConnell himself.”

In those diaries, McConnell said “it’s not just the Democrats who are counting the days” until Trump was out of the White House, adding that Trump’s 2020 loss “only underscores the good judgment of the American people.”

"They’ve had just enough of the misrepresentations, the outright lies almost on a daily basis, and they fired him," McConnell said.

Yet despite McConnell’s disdain for Trump, he gave up on the best opportunity to rid his party and the country of the man he called a liar when he voted against convicting Trump for inciting the violent and deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. 

Had McConnell worked to rally the Republican senators he leads to vote to convict Trump on the single impeachment charge of inciting insurrection, Trump could have been barred from running for office again in the future. McConnell’s decision to let Trump slide helped pave the way for Trump to wage his current comeback bid. Trump has vowed to destabilize American democracy by threatening to jail his political enemies and using the military to go after American citizens whom he described as “the enemy from within.” 

What’s more, even though McConnell thinks Trump is “stupid” and a “despicable human being,” he endorsed Trump in his 2024 comeback bid, saying in March: “It is abundantly clear that former President Trump has earned the requisite support of Republican voters to be our nominee for President of the United States. It should come as no surprise that as nominee, he will have my support.”

McConnell endorsed Trump because he is trying to prevent what he called his “worst nightmare” which he described as a Democratic sweep of the White House, the House, and the Senate. 

While McConnell has stuck by Trump, a number of other Republicans have said they won’t be voting for him and instead endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid, declaring that they are putting “country over party.”

Those Republicans include: former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former Wyoming Rep Liz Cheney; former Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois; former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan; Alberto Gonzales, who served as attorney general in former President George W. Bush’s administration; and former Trump White House aides Cassidy Hutchinson, Stephanie Grisham, and Olivia Troye, among others.

Harris and her campaign have been reaching out to Republicans, hoping that their defections from Trump could be decisive in what’s currently predicted to be a toss-up election in November.

She held a rally on Wednesday in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, with over 100 Republicans who are supporting her campaign. Two of those Republicans, Bob and Kristina Lange, spoke at the event, describing themselves as lifelong Republicans who voted for Trump. 

“Never in a million years did either of us think that we'd be standing here supporting a Democrat. But we've had enough. We've had enough,” Kristina Lange said at the event.

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If only McConnell had as much courage as the Langes. 

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Outside of his bubble, Trump flails at Univision town hall

Posted on by Oliver Willis

Donald Trump participated in a town hall with voters hosted by Univision on Wednesday night, and the event was a showcase of the headwinds Trump faces when he ventures outside of his right-wing bubble.

During the 2024 campaign, Trump has rarely faced questions from those who aren’t already supporters, and he has largely avoided media outlets that do not have a conservative bias. The voters who spoke to Trump at the Univision event respectfully questioned Trump on important issues, but he often veered off into unrelated ranting or avoiding the subject.

Ramiro González, a former registered Republican, told Trump he was disillusioned by the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and Trump’s role in inciting the attack. He asked Trump to win back his vote by explaining his behavior during the attack and his mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trump restated his claim that he did nothing wrong on the day of the attack, despite his speech that day telling supporters to “fight like hell.” Trump also lied and said there were no guns at the attack, but there were.

“That was a day of love,” Trump said, as González looked on skeptically.

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Another voter asked Trump why he pressured Republicans to kill a bipartisan border-security bill. Instead of answering, Trump filibustered and discussed his support for “strong” borders and complained about crime in cities run by Democratic officials.

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Trump also continued to promote the debunked racist conspiracy theory that he and running mate JD Vance have advanced. Trump told voters he claimed Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating domestic animals because “I was just saying what was reported,” adding that migrants “are eating other things, too, that they’re not supposed to be.”

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Trump’s poor showing on Wednesday comes after Vice President Kamala Harris was the guest of a Univision town hall last week. At that event, Harris expressed sympathy for a woman whose mother died after her immigration status held up medical care.

The troubled outing for Trump also stands in contrast to his appearance at an all-woman town hall event on Fox News, which the network aired Wednesday morning. That audience was more receptive to Trump, but the network failed to disclose that the crowd was packed with supporters picked out by the Georgia Federation of Republican Women.

At around the same time as Trump’s Univision event, Harris sat for an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier. Despite his hostile questioning, Harris deftly handled the inquiry and even called out the network for deceptively editing comments from Trump.

Earlier on the day of Trump’s Univision town hall, which took place in Doral, Florida, the Harris campaign hosted a nearby press conference with families who had been impacted by Trump’s policy of separating families at the border.

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“I had no bed sheets, no bed, no nothing,” a young man identified as Billy told reporters, recounting his experience in detention. He said he was held in a room where the temperature was set to around 54 to 55 degrees.

Trump’s family-separation policy was widely condemned across the world, and the Biden-Harris administration has since devoted resources to reunifying affected families.

 

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