Sen. Ted Cruz has faced some fair criticisms in recent years for supporting Donald Trump, even after the former president took the extraordinary step of going after the Texas Republican’s wife. There’s an old cliché about politics not being beanbag, but the fact that a senator would be willing to overlook personal attacks against his own spouse struck many observers as extraordinary.
We’re occasionally reminded, however, that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is in the same boat.
To be sure, the former president’s campaign against the Kentucky Republican has been unsubtle. Trump has gone out of his way to attack McConnell, all but begging GOP senators to replace the longtime lawmaker as their leader. The former president has also said McConnell “has a DEATH WISH” for disagreeing with Trump’s legislative strategies, and last year, he told The New York Times on the record that he consider McConnell to be “a piece of s—.”
But Trump has been just as aggressive in going after the GOP leader’s wife, former cabinet secretary Elaine Chao, with racist taunts and dubious allegations of corruption.
As CNN learned this week, McConnell is prepared to support another Trump candidacy anyway.
McConnell, who has faced incessant attacks from Trump after he blamed the former president for being “practically and morally responsible” for the 2021 Capitol attack, is not publicly letting on any concerns about the possibility that Trump could be on the top of the GOP ticket again. … “Look, I’m going to support the nominee of our party for president, no matter who that may be,” he said.
Or put another way, even now, knowing everything he now knows, after the former president went after his own wife with racist taunts, McConnell is still open to supporting a Trump comeback bid. In fact, based on his comments, the Senate minority leader is fully prepared to back Trump again if he’s the choice of the party’s primary voters.
This isn’t surprising, but maybe it should be.
Let’s revisit some earlier coverage and review how we arrived at this point. It was during Trump’s first year in the White House that the new president looked to McConnell as someone who would simply take orders and make Trump’s problems go away. When the senator tried to explain how government worked, a “profane shouting match” soon followed.
But it was after Trump’s defeat that the relationship collapsed. McConnell had the audacity to accept the results of his own country’s elections and criticize Trump for failing to do the same, at which point the former president started condemning the GOP leader as a corrupt “hack.”
Things seemed to culminate on Feb. 13, 2021, in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s second impeachment trial, when McConnell delivered memorable floor remarks, condemning Trump’s “disgraceful dereliction of duty” on Jan. 6. The Senate minority leader added, “There is no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day. No question about it.”
In the same speech, McConnell called out Trump for his “crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole … orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.”
The Kentucky senator went on to raise the prospect of Trump facing civil and/or criminal penalties for his obvious misconduct.
Two weeks later, McConnell appeared on Fox News and was asked whether he’d support Trump’s 2024 candidacy, if the former president again ran as the Republican nominee.
“Absolutely,” McConnell replied.
Last year, Axios’ Jonathan Swan tried to explore this further, asking about McConnell’s “moral red lines.” The Senate minority leader didn’t seem to appreciate the line of inquiry.
“As a Republican leader of the Senate, it should not be a front-page headline that I will support the Republican nominee for president,” said McConnell, who added: “I think I have an obligation to support the nominee of my party, and I will.”
When Swan pressed on, asking if there’s anything Trump could possibly do that would cause the senator to withhold his support for the former president, McConnell, appearing visibly frustrated, said: “I don’t get to pick the Republican nominee for president. They’re elected by the Republican voters.”
In other words, asked about his “moral red lines,” the Kentuckian conceded that such lines effectively do not exist, at least insofar as electoral politics is concerned.
His comments to CNN this week dovetail nicely with his remarks from a year ago. McConnell will back the Republican nominee. Period. If that means supporting a presidential candidate who instigated an insurrectionist attack on his country’s seat of government, made racist comments about his wife, and made vaguely threatening comments directed at the senator personally, so be it.
The senator’s list of concerns starts and ends with the Republican Party’s pursuit of power.
This post revises our related earlier coverage.
