Sources close to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell say the Kentucky Republican has no interest in ever speaking to former President Donald Trump again.
“McConnell has not spoken with Trump since Dec. 14 — the day McConnell acknowledged President Biden won the November election — and he does not plan to ever speak with him again, people close to him say,” the Washington Post reported. “Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose internal details. Even the back channel the two men once had — between McConnell’s former top aide Josh Holmes and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner — is now cold.”
The news comes as the two leading figures of the Republican Party have been engulfed in a feud in recent weeks, with McConnell denouncing Trump’s actions leading up to the Jan. 6 Capitol riots on the Senate floor and later in an op-ed.
“There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day,” McConnell said of Trump’s conduct leading up to the riot.
McConnell eventually voted to acquit Trump on the impeachment charges, but that didn’t stop the former president from issuing a scathing public rebuke of the Senate’s top Republican.
“Mitch is a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack, and if Republican Senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again,” Trump said in the statement. “He will never do what needs to be done, or what is right for our Country. Where necessary and appropriate, I will back primary rivals who espouse Making America Great Again and our policy of America First. We want brilliant, strong, thoughtful, and compassionate leadership.”
People close to McConnell, however, don’t expect him to continue the public feud with Trump, saying that the longtime Republican leader will instead pivot to opposing the Democratic Party’s agenda while prepping an effort to retake the Senate in 2022.
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“I would be very surprised if he ever says the words Donald Trump again,” said Josh Holmes, McConnell’s former top aide. “If you told Mitch McConnell that every single day he’d receive a love letter from Donald Trump excoriating his physical appearance and ultimately he ended up with the majority in 2022, he’d take the deal in a heartbeat.”
