Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, like many Republicans who support Donald Trump, is upset with Trump and the tack he’s taken in the presidential campaign.
During an interview Tuesday about his new book The Long Game: A Memoir, McConnell went out of his way to urge Trump to change his ways. “I think it’s time for him to act like a serious presidential candidate,” McConnell said. “This could be a winnable race,” he said, referring to Trump’s campaign against Hillary Clinton.
McConnell recalled an encounter with Trump at the National Rifle Association convention in Louisville three weeks ago. He asked Trump if he had a script for his speech. Trump said he did.
But “I hate the script,” Trump told McConnell. “It’s boring.” The Republican leader suggested it was time to stick to a script even if that made his speeches boring.
Speaking at the American Enterprise Institute Tuesday, McConnell outlined what a serious candidate should do: think before he acts, apologize when necessary, and “get on script.”
McConnell was asked what it would take for him to reconsider his endorsement of Trump. He declined to answer. But he did refer to Trump’s attacks on federal judge Gonzalo P. Curiel, who is overseeing a lawsuit against the now-defunct Trump University. “I worry about those gratuitous shots” that Trump is taking against the judge and others.
The effect could be enormously harmful to Republicans in the November election, notably in “writing off Hispanic-American voters.” Gonzalo, Trump has charged, is biased against him because of the judge’s Mexican ancestry. Curiel’s parent were immigrants from Mexico, but he was born in the U.S.
“From a practical point of view,” McConnell said, it’s not smart to do that in the midst of a presidential race.
McConnell was also critical of President Obama. As a “proud” son of a World War II veteran, “it really grated on me to see the president go to Hiroshima.” He noted that Obama didn’t apologize for the U.S. having dropped an atomic bomb on the city, but added, “There’s nothing to apologize for.”
The Japanese had fiercely defended every island American troops had taken on the route to the Japanese mainland, McConnell said. And the Japanese were expected to do the same in defending the mainland. The bombing wound up saving hundreds of thousands of lives, he said.
Regarding Obama’s foreign policy, McConnell said he agreed with a statement he attributed to President Carter. Asked for his view, Carter said he couldn’t think of a single place in the world “where we’re better off” since Obama was elected.
