Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the effort to impeach President Trump and remove him from office has backfired on Democrats, at least politically.
“I’m not sitting here predicting what will be the biggest issue in November, but I can tell you this, and tell you that right now: This is a political loser for them,” McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, told reporters after the Senate voted to acquit Trump of two articles of impeachment.
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McConnell said he was “surprised and disappointed” that Republican Mitt Romney voted to convict Trump on one of the articles but said the Senate GOP “still had great teamwork” in the effort to clear Trump nearly unanimously.
McConnell said Romney would not be punished for his vote, despite calls by some outside of Congress that he should be kicked out of the Republican conference.
“We don’t have any doghouses here,” McConnell said. “The most important vote is the next vote.”
McConnell said he hopes the acquittal will send a message to the House to never again send over what he called a partisan impeachment.
Trump’s approval ratings have soared, McConnell said, and his Senate Republicans up for reelection are faring well in the polls.
“They thought this was a great idea,” McConnell said of the House Democrats’ impeachment effort, “and, at least for the short term, it is a colossal political mistake.”
