Scarborough and Heilemann Discuss McConnell’s Nightmare as GOP Tries to Give Senate Away

This site has spent ample time focused on the implications of Trump endorsing candidates for the U.S. Senate based solely upon loyalty to him with nearly no other limiting factor. The result has been a collection of extremists to go against solid Democratic candidates in states that the Republicans likely believed that they could win. As if that were not enough, many of these extremists, Walker in Georgia, Oz in Pennsylvania, Vance in Ohio, and Masters in Arizona, are also just… “weird.” We didn’t even have to mention Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, up for reelection and considered weak and weird.

Read: Kristi Noem Is Banned From 20% of South Dakota.

McConnell wants to be the majority leader in 2022 because that’s McConnell’s rightful place in the world. Ask him. But 2022 is really important because one suspects that the U.S. Senate will play a special role in the 2024 election, and that’s terrifying.

This morning, Joe Scarborough and John Heilemann discussed McConnell’s “sinking feeling,” a feeling that should be familiar to McConnell because he’s been through this before.

Scarborough kicked it off after noting that Tim Ryan was leading J.D. Vance in poling in Ohio at 49-38:

You look at the Republicans you look at what they’re doing with legislation across the country. You look at 10-year-old girls having to flee their states who are raped because the state is going to force them to have their rapist’s baby. You look at other Republican legislators that are putting together a rapist’s family’s bill of rights that, if a young girl is raped and tries to end the pregnancy, the rapist’s family members can sue her for $20,000, each one of them can. In Texas, they’re fighting the federal government’s attempt to stop moms from dying on operating tables.”

They are that insane.

“This is really crazy stuff. We saw it play out in Kansas the other day. Now, you look again at Butters [Scarborough’s nickname for Vance] and Dr. Oz and some of these crackpots, some of these phonies running. I mean, I’ve got to believe, if you’re Mitch McConnell, if you’re a Republican, that actually thought this year was going to be easy, you’ve got to be shaking your head at this point.”

“Easy” isn’t the right word. McConnell never thought it would be easy. But it is doubtful that he ever thought it would become all but impossible.

John Heilemann noted:

“Mitch McConnell has seen it before, Joe. He did some interviews earlier this year where he was like, you know, you could tell he was haunted by the specter of 2014 and some other of the elections where they have — they had issues — 2010.”

“Then this tendency in this new century for Republicans to, especially on the Senate side, to mess up opportunities to win seats they should be able to win,” he continued. “Mitch McConnell knows what this feels like, and he must be having that sinking feeling again.”

Yes, and we have been noting it here for three months, and it all goes back to treks to Mar-a-Lago and a man’s need for grievance and revenge.

Jason Miciak

@JasonMiciak believes a day without learning is a day not lived. He is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is a Canadian-born dual citizen who spent his teen and college years in the Pacific Northwest and has since lived in seven states. He now enjoys life as a single dad of a young girl, writing from the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He loves crafting his flower pots, cooking, and currently studies philosophy of science, religion, and non-math principles behind quantum mechanics and cosmology. Please feel free to contact with any concerns.