Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) conceded this week that he and other Republican officials are “trying to” get Donald Trump “to act and speak like a serious presidential candidate.” The senator’s comments to Bloomberg Politics yesterday suggest the efforts aren’t necessarily going well.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that Donald Trump needs to pick an experienced running mate because “he doesn’t know a lot about the issues” and strongly urged him to change course on his rhetoric. […]“He needs someone highly experienced and very knowledgeable because it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t know a lot about the issues,” McConnell said. “You see that in the debates in which he’s participated.”
McConnell went on to say that he’s urged Trump to demonstrate “the seriousness of purpose that is required to be president of the United States.” Suggesting the presidential hopeful has not yet met this threshold, the senator added, “We’ll see whether that’s something he’s capable of doing.”
The Kentucky Republican nevertheless said he’s “comfortable” supporting Trump’s candidacy.
Could there be a more direct validation of the post-policy thesis than this? McConnell freely admits that his party’s presidential candidate is ignorant on matters of public policy and hasn’t demonstrated the necessary seriousness of purpose — but the senator nevertheless wants this man in the Oval Office, making life-and-death decisions, and leading the free world.
I half-expect McConnell to start telling reporters, “Qualified, schmalifed. As long as he has an ‘R’ after his name, I don’t care.”
The GOP leader added that if Trump is elected, he’d “have to respond to the right-of-center world which elected him.”
In other words, McConnell is still operating under the assumption that Trump can be tempered, controlled, and managed by traditional expectations and restraints.
Funny, Dr. Frankenstein thought something similar about his monster, too.
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."