Once partners together in a bid to reshape the federal judiciary and build a conservative Supreme Court majority, former President Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are now in a battle for control of the Republican Party.
Republican insiders are unsure which side will prevail. Some think Trump’s presidency was a sign rank-and-file voters have turned against GOP establishment politics for the foreseeable future. Others doubt the ex-president has the attention span or organization to compete with the wily Senate tactician from Kentucky.
But many fear the fallout of a protracted public spat between two of the most important Republican leaders in the country. “We’re all lucky DJT doesn’t have Twitter,” said a GOP strategist and former Trump 2016 campaign official.
The early signs are that the grassroots are sticking with Trump. In a Quinnipiac University poll released this week, only 11% of Republicans hold Trump responsible for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol carried out by some of his supporters. Three out of four want him to continue to play a “prominent role” in the party’s future.
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McConnell, by contrast, has seen his approval rating among Republican voters in his own state plummet by 29 points to 41% since rebuking Trump. The Kentuckian was just reelected with nearly 58% of the vote in November, but Trump won the state with 62.1% and held President Biden below a million votes.
When the iconic conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh died on Wednesday, it was Trump who did a round of media interviews discussing the host’s legacy — not McConnell, whose service in the Senate dates back to President Ronald Reagan’s administration and whose involvement in Republican politics goes back even further.
The two clashed early in Trump’s term after the Senate failed to repeal and replace Obamacare following the narrow passage of that legislation in the House. Both chambers were then under Republican control.
But Trump soon came to appreciate McConnell’s legislative savvy after he guided three of his Supreme Court nominees to confirmation and helped beat back the first Democratic impeachment drive. Just a year ago, Trump celebrated his original acquittal with McConnell and other congressional Republicans at the White House.
“And Mitch McConnell, I want to tell you: You did a fantastic job,” Trump said as GOP lawmakers applauded. “This guy is great, and I appreciate it, Mitch.”
McConnell once again voted to acquit Trump, but this time marked himself as no ally of the former president.
“President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it,” he said in his speech on the Senate floor. “The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president, and having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole, which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.”
Trump responded with a blistering statement excoriating McConnell as “a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack.” He took credit for the fact that Republicans are only one seat away from the Senate majority, including McConnell’s own reelection, and blamed the Kentuckian’s opposition to $2,000 individual stimulus payments for the party’s Georgia defeats.
“I find it curious that Trump claimed all of these electoral victories in [this week’s] missive when the facts are very clear otherwise,” said a Republican operative in Washington, D.C. “He is the only president in recent memory to lose the House, the Senate, and the presidency in just four years. He has severely damaged Republicans’ standing with suburban women due to his behavior. And now, he’s going to support primaries against Republicans who have crossed him. How does that help us regain the House and the Senate?”
Some think Trump will be too busy rebuilding businesses after his brand took a beating the past five years to stay as involved in politics as McConnell. He could also face additional legal scrutiny on issues ranging from the Capitol riot to his controversial contacts with Georgia election officials to both state of New York and federal investigations of his business dealings. Trump was noncommittal about his political future in his first post-presidential interviews this week.
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Yet, others note that predictions that Trump will go away have repeatedly fallen flat since he announced his first presidential candidacy, with one conservative activist calling it “perplexing” that McConnell would pick this particular fight. One other prominent Republican who has criticized Trump has already partially walked it back amid reports of a quashed Mar-a-Lago meeting.
“People on the left, if they’re honest, can find Trump accomplishments they like — a coronavirus vaccine in record time, Middle East peace, more accountability from China,” Nikki Haley wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Thursday. “People on the right can find fault with Trump actions, including on Jan. 6.”
