Trump launches scorching attack on Republican Senate leader

WASHINGTON • Former US president Donald Trump has made a slashing and lengthy attack on Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, calling him a "dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack" and arguing that the party would suffer losses in the future if he remained in charge.

"If Republican senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again," Mr Trump said on Tuesday.

The 600-word statement, coming three days after the Senate acquitted Mr Trump in his second impeachment trial, was trained solely on Mr McConnell and sought to paint Mr Trump as the best leader of the Grand Old Party (GOP) going forward.

The statement did not include any sign of contrition from Mr Trump for his remarks to a crowd of supporters who then attacked the US Capitol on Jan 6. Nor did it include any acknowledgement of his role during the violent hours in which his own vice-president and members of Congress were under threat from the mob of Trump supporters.

Rather, Mr Trump chose to focus on Mr McConnell as he broke an unusually lengthy silence by his standards, after being permanently barred from his former favourite medium - Twitter - last month because of tweets he had posted during the Capitol riot.

Mr McConnell's office on Tuesday declined to comment on Mr Trump's attacks, but the senator has left little mystery about his contempt for the former president.

Shortly after he joined the majority of Republican senators last Saturday in voting to acquit Mr Trump on the House impeachment charge of "incitement of insurrection", Mr McConnell excoriated Mr Trump, laying the blame for the riot at his feet and suggesting that further investigations of Mr Trump could play out in the judicial system.

"There is no question, none, that president Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day," Mr McConnell said in remarks on the Senate floor.

His comments were widely interpreted as an attempt to minimise Mr Trump's brand of politics within the Republican Party, and to appeal to donors who have said they are rejecting the party after some senators voted against certifying President Joe Biden's victory.

Mr McConnell wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed article and gave an interview to the paper, suggesting he might get involved in primaries for 2022 as part of an effort to win back the majority.

In private, he has said he believed the impeachment proceedings would make it easier for Republicans to eventually purge Mr Trump from the party. And he expressed surprise and mild bemusement at the hatchet-burying mission made to Mr Trump's private club in Palm Beach, Florida, by Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader.

In public, Mr McConnell has sharply criticised Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the extremist freshman and Trump devotee from Georgia, while defending Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming after her vote to impeach Mr Trump.

What Mr McConnell has not done, though, is openly declare political war on Mr Trump in the fashion that the former president did to him on Tuesday.

While telling associates he knew he would have to oppose Mr Trump in some primaries next year, he had hoped to unify his caucus by turning attention to Mr Biden.

But if Mr McConnell was not eager to begin an open and protracted feud with Mr Trump, at least not yet, the freshly acquitted, ever-pugnacious and newly de-platformed former president was happy to do so.

One person close to Mr Trump said his initial version of the statement was more incendiary than what was released publicly.

In the statement, he resorted to insults about Mr McConnell's acumen and political abilities, and faulted him for the Republicans' loss of their Senate majority.

"The Republican Party can never again be respected or strong with political 'leaders' like Senator Mitch McConnell at its helm," Mr Trump said.

"McConnell's dedication to business as usual, status quo policies, together with his lack of political insight, wisdom, skill and personality, have rapidly driven him from majority leader to minority leader, and it will only get worse."

He added: "We know our America First agenda is a winner, not McConnell's Beltway First agenda or Biden's America Last."

NEW YORK TIMES