Two starkly different versions of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) legacy emerged in the hours after he announced he would step down as minority leader on Wednesday.
In one corner of the GOP, McConnell was praised for standing as a “bulwark of conservative leadership” in his 17 years as the chamber’s top Republican.
Among his accomplishments, his allies said, McConnell will be remembered for transforming the federal courts and his vocal defense of the Ronald Reagan doctrine of “peace through strength.”
But McConnell’s decision to step down was also met with taunts from some Republicans who called him an appendage of the Democratic Party who had sold out to corporate interests.
“Our thoughts are with our Democrat colleagues in the Senate on the retirement of their Co-Majority Leader,” the House Freedom Caucus said in a statement.
McConnell will end his tenure in November reviled by Democrats, too.
Years later, the party is still smarting over his decision not to consider then-President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court pick to replace Justice Antonin Scalia.
The snub began what would become a conservative remaking of the Supreme Court, and his subsequent defense of the filibuster has frustrated Democratic attempts to pass a slate of progressive priorities.
But McConnell’s decision to step down has once again laid bare a growing rift in the Republican Party, one set in motion by the anti-establishment fervor of the Tea Party movement and exacerbated by the populism of former President Donald Trump.
That divide will be litigated in the fall when Republicans must choose who will succeed McConnell in the Senate. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), a member of his leadership team, predicted the same Republicans who opposed McConnell for leader in 2022 will challenge his likely successors, forcing the election to a second or third ballot.
But for now, the retrospective on McConnell’s decadeslong career is neatly illustrating the gap. He is a polarizing figure, just as the party has become polarized.
Part of the griping has to do with the Republican leader himself. He developed a reputation for managing his conference with an iron fist. And his willingness to compromise with the Democrats, most recently on a bipartisan border deal, has drawn the ire of hard-liners who want to see him fight.
The critiques are unavoidable, said Tillis, who ran the North Carolina House as speaker. “There’s always gonna be a handful of people that think they can do it better.”
But the complaints are also ideological. For years, McConnell has swatted away calls for regular order and fiscal restraint from a crop of Senate Republicans.
Those Republicans would throw up legislative roadblocks to the “uniparty” agenda but, unable to drag out the process indefinitely, represented a thorn in McConnell’s side, not an existential threat. Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) challenged him for leader to start the new Congress, but McConnell easily defeated him in a 37-10 vote.
Yet just a year later, McConnell is preparing to exit the stage with his grasp on the conference far less certain.
That is, in part, a function of his age. McConnell, who turned 82 last week, faced questions over his ability to lead after suffering a concussion last year and freezing up during public appearances.
But he’s also navigating a sea change in Republican politics as Trump barrels toward the Republican nomination for president.
The current flashpoint is Ukraine. McConnell, a vocal defense hawk, sees additional aid to the country as critical to countering Russian aggression. However, Trump views the funding with skepticism. He brags that he could bring the conflict to a close in 24 hours, presumably with a negotiated settlement that cedes land to Russia.
Earlier this month, McConnell helped muscle the aid through the Senate in a 70-29 vote that he hailed as reaffirming America’s commitment to its international obligations abroad.
But he is well aware that Trump’s preferences have begun to outweigh his own.
The former president killed an earlier version of the bill that included a modest deal on border security. More than half of McConnell’s conference opposed the measure once Trump came out against it.
The foreign aid bill, should it eventually pass the House, a big if, will be shaped further by Trump’s demands, among them his desire for the assistance to be converted into a loan.
The dispute extends far beyond whether to assist a single ally in a single conflict, however. It gets at a simmering battle in the Republican Party over America’s role on the world stage.
McConnell has championed the traditional view of neo-conservatives that favors American intervention, but he finds himself marginalized by the new mainstream — a Trump foreign policy that puts “America first.”
The former president has remade the party in other, less pervasive ways. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), one of McConnell’s biggest critics, deployed Trump’s appeals to the working class in taking issue with the idea that the minority leader governed as a conservative.
“If you mean having the U.S. Senate bought and paid for by the big corporations, which it is, then sure,” he told the Washington Examiner. “But if you think that we actually ought to be doing something for the working people in this country, then I think it’s time to change direction.”
The impasse over Ukraine specifically, though, threatens to deny McConnell the final puzzle piece in his legacy as leader. And it has revived accusations that he is a “turncoat” for working with Democrats to get the bill passed.
Ironically, McConnell had great success with Trump as president. Despite his populist leanings, and his eventual fallout with McConnell over the events of Jan. 6, Trump governed largely as a traditional Republican.
McConnell moved hundreds of judges through the Senate, including three Supreme Court justices, and passed the largest tax cut in years.
But Trump’s hold on the party today is even stronger than when he occupied the White House, and he is far less constrained by the career advisers who helped shape his first term.
He now has loud boosters in the Senate, and even those who disagree with him are reluctant to challenge the presumptive nominee of their party.
Suddenly, the 10 Republicans who opposed McConnell’s run for leader have found a much larger constituency for their gripes with him.
McConnell’s apprehension at stepping down at such an inflection point for the party was evident as he announced his retirement from the well of the Senate on Wednesday.
“The end of my contributions are closer than I’d prefer,” he said of his age.
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But he promised to speak forcefully, albeit as a rank-and-file member, as he serves out the remainder of his term, which ends in 2027.
“I still have enough gas in the tank to thoroughly disappoint my critics, and I intend to do so with all the enthusiasm which they have become accustomed,” he said.
