Republicans are currently courting Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) after he rang the death knell for President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill, which would have been the Biden administration’s most substantial public policy victory.
Senate Minority Leader McConnell told local Kentucky media that he was glad that the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed and called it good for America.
All across the country top, potential Republican candidates are refusing to run for Senate and killing Mitch McConnell's chances of becoming Majority Leader.
Right now, the South is on fire with Delta variant COVID cases. And most of those states are run by Republican governors. And leaders like Florida’s Ron DeSantis, Texas’ Greg Abbott and Tennessee’s Bill Lee are doing next to nothing to protect the children of their state.
Former President Donald Trump lashed out at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), criticizing him for supporting a bipartisan infrastructure package that is set to the pass the Senate.
“Nobody will ever understand why Mitch McConnell allowed this non-infrastructure bill to be passed. He has given up all of his leverage for the big whopper of a bill that will follow,” Trump wrote in a statement. “I have quietly said for years that Mitch McConnell is the most overrated man in politics—now I don’t have to be quiet anymore.”
The relationship between Herschel Walker and Donald Trump goes back a long time. When Walker was a football star coming out of college, Trump gave him a massive contract to sign with his New Jersey Generals. And since then the men have been close.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says he aims to boost vaccination rates across the United States by countering misinformation, per Reuters. This misinformation appears to be most prevalent in Republican-dominated states.
“Folks [are] supposed to have common sense.”
These are the now well-known words of Alabama’s Republican Governor Kay Ivey when she called out those hesitant or downright resistant to getting vaccinated, declaring that “it’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned Democrats that the GOP will not vote to raise the debt ceiling. McConnell said that Democrats should to include the spending hike in an infrastructure bill that they can pass along party lines.
“I can’t imagine there will be a single Republican voting to raise the debt ceiling after what we’ve been experiencing,” McConnell
Democrats hold the majority in the House of Representatives.
They hold a narrow majority in the Senate.
They have the White House.
And up until last week, they actually believed they could make common cause with republicans for the good of the republic.
But Senate Minority Leader Mitch “The Grim Reaper” McConnell said the quiet part out loud during the two-week July 4 congressional recess when he returned to Kentucky and admitted to NBC News “the era of bipartisanship on this stuff is over.”
The “this stuff” he refers to is the “American Jobs Plan,” which seeks to cut greenhouse gas emissions, address racial and economic disparities that lead to higher pollution in communities of color, distribute electric car charging stations across the country, and create tens of thousands of well-paying union jobs transitioning the country away from fossil fuels.
McConnell had tapped West Va. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito to be the republican point person to negotiate with the Biden administration.
The original spending proposal for the package was $2.3 trillion.
Then the administration, in a good-faith effort to “reach across the aisle,” decreased it to $1.7 trillion.
Negotiations with Moore Capito resulted in House Democrats offering to reduce the amount even further–to $547 billion.
Despite not voting for it, McConnell boasted to his constituents about the amount their state is going receive:
“So you’re going to get a lot more money. I didn’t vote for it, but you’re going to get a lot more money. Cities and counties in Kentucky will get close to $700-800 million. If you add up the total amount that’ll come into our state: $4 billion…. So my advice to members of the legislature and other local officials: Spend it wisely because hopefully this windfall doesn’t come along again…. We’ve floated entirely too much money.”
McConnell, in Kentucky, talks Biden's $1.9T Covid relief law: "It passed on a straight party line vote… So you're going to get a lot more money. I didn't vote for it, but you're going to get a lot more money. Cities and counties in Kentucky will get close to $700-800 million."
COVID-19 was never meant to be partisan issue. Unfortunately, the pandemic hit while Donald Trump was still in office. And fearing that the fallout could affect his reelection chances, Trump chose to politicize the issue.
Joining the former president in pushing COVID disinfo were cable networks like Fox, Newsmax and OAN. In addition, politicians like Rand Paul, Marjorie Ron Johnson and Madison Crawthorn have made is so their constituents were less likely to get inoculated.
When Mitch McConnell was asked about vaccine hesitancy among Republicans on Thursday, he acted surprised. He told reporters, “I’m perplexed by the reluctance of some to get vaccinated, totally perplexed.”
It’s not hard to see, though, why Republicans may be confused about the inoculation. Rand Paul, the other senator from McConnell’s home state of Kentucky, has been a major pusher of COVID disinformation. Paul, who contracted COVID early in the pandemic, has said that he will not be vaccinated.
This wasn’t the only news the senate minority leader made on Thursday. He also talked about checking Joe Biden in 2022. McConnell told reporters,
“What I want you to know is if I become the majority leader again it’s not for stopping everything. It’s for stopping the worst. It’s for stopping things that fundamentally push the country into a direction that at least my party feels is not a good idea for the country. And I could make sure Biden makes his promise … to be a moderate.”
When he first took office, Joe Biden promised to make a good faith effort to work with Republicans. And that effort has been made on numerous occasions over Biden’s first few months in office.
Mitch McConnell, though, has often urged his senators against working with the president or supporting his legislation. This is the same kind of obstructionist behavior the senate minority leader was so fond of during Barack Obama‘s time in office.
On Wednesday, Biden chided McConnell for highlighting the details of his infrastructure package without actually supporting it. McConnell said at a recent event in Kentucky, “Not a single member of my party voted for it. So, you’re going to get a lot more money. I didn’t vote for it. But you’re going to get a lot more money. Cities and counties in Kentucky will get close to $700 [million] or $800 million. If you add up the total amount that will come into our state, $4 billion, that’s twice what was sent in last year.”
When asked about those comments, Biden replied, “Mitch McConnell loves our programs. You see what Mitch McConnell said? He told me he wasn’t going to get a single vote in order to allow me to get, with the help of everybody here, that $1.9 trillion … program for economic growth. Look it up, man. He’s bragging about it in Kentucky.”
McConnell and Biden, despite their political differences are long-time friends. But Biden’s strategy of pointing out the benefits to McConnell’s constituents is a smart one.
Watch the exchange below:
Reporter: "McConnell says you're in for a heck of a fight on this one."
President Biden: "Mitch McConnell loves our programs." pic.twitter.com/zaVAbj553S
— The Hill (@thehill)
July 7, 2021
The Lincoln Project has released a new ad mocking former President Donald Trump for his beef with Senate Minority Mitch McConnell (D-Ky.) and declared McConnell the actual leader of the Republican Party.
“Does Mitch call the shots now, Donald?” the narrator of the ad asks. “He says he runs the Republican party, the party you built. He’s the boss now. He’s even taking shots at you.”
“When did Mitch overpower you?” the narrator asks following a clip of McConnell blaming Trump for inciting an insurrection against Congress
Joe Biden has spent the vast majority of his adult life in the United States senate. He was first elected to office in 1973 when he was just 31 years old. And the only years since then that he didn’t spend working with other senators were the 4 years Donald Trump was president.
And during that time, Biden was known for his relationships with Republican lawmakers. He had a famous friendship with John McCain. And Biden was apparently even able to develop a very strong relationship with Mitch McConnell.
During a Tuesday event at the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, McConnell paid the current president high praise. The senate minority leader was asked, “You’re stranded on a desert island and you can only have one companion. Your choices are Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton or
Jimmy Carter
Following the January 6th insurrection, both Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell blasted Donald Trump for his role in the attack. They know have different takes on the matter.
McCarthy famously went down to Mar-a-Lago, kissed Trump’s ring, and he now backs the former president no matter what. McConnell has never changed course on the issue. In fact, a new book by Jon Karl reports that the Kentucky senator urged Barr to issue a statement about the election. Today Trump blasted McConnell, saying he blew it for the country.
McConnell reportedly told Barr, “
Look, we need the president in Georgia. And so we cannot be frontally attacking him right now. But you’re in a better position to inject some reality into this situation. You are really the only one who can do it.”
At this point in time, Republicans have realized that their platform is not very popular. There is a clear reason why they have stopped talking ideas and have gone all the way in on the culture war.
No leader has ever tried to suppress the vote quite like Donald Trump did. He even had his Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, sabotage the postal service to make it harder for people to vote by mail.
And since Joe Biden‘s victory in November, Red states have committed to making it even harder for people to vote. There have already been 22 news laws aimed at making it harder for people to exercise their franchise.
But to hear Mitch McConnell tell it, voter suppression is a completely fabricated Democratic idea. The senate minority leader discussed the topic during a Thursday appearance on Fox News.
Host Mike Emanuel gave McConnell an obvious setup by asking, “The voting rights bill only got 50 yes votes it needed 60. It wasn’t even close to passing. Was this a messaging bill all along?”
The senate minority leader answered, “ Well, I think so. And if the president wants to keep on talking about it, we would like to keep on talking about it, too. Because there is no voter suppression going on in any state in America. And the bill they were trying to pass would have taxpayer dollars spent on political campaigning. Would turn the federal election commission from a judge into a prosecutor. In other words, make it unbalanced. And prevent photo I.D. At the polls, something supported by 80% of Americans. So, if the president wants to keep on talking about this bill, so do we.”
Watch a clip of the segment below:
Mitch McConnell tells Fox News, there is now voter suppression going on in any state in America. pic.twitter.com/BJ94Vrtf8q
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) June 25, 2021
In the 6 years he was the senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell wielded his power with an iron fist. He laughed at the idea of bipartisanship. He placed radical right-wing judges in lifetime appointments. The Kentucky senator even blocked the senate from even having a vote on the Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland.
McConnell was willing to play rough when he had the chance. Some Democratic lawmakers prefer to take the perceived high road. And if they continue to do so, says Nicolle Wallace, all their big wins from 2020 will be for naught.
Wallace told fellow anchor Ari Melber on Tuesday, “So, all I have is history in my own reporting on this. And history shows Mitch McConnell obliterated the filibuster to push through judges his power rose in his caucus and his political power rose in his state.”
The MSNBC host continued:
“The idea that there is political peril of leaving [the filibuster] in place. There is political peril of Democrats going out to voters in two years and saying, ‘Guns? I know, we have 80 percent of the public crying for something of the epidemic of mass shootings. But we can’t get through the filibuster. Infrastructure we have to go small because Joe Manchin wanted it to be bipartisan. Voting rights, yeah, I am sorry the dropbox that you left your ballots in the middle of the pandemic,fini’.I think they are choosing between bad and worse. Today the worse is leaving the filibuster in place.”
Speaking to Fox News, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) evaded the question of whether he would “welcome” former President Donald Trump’s involvement come midterm elections in 2022.
“Well, he has his own agenda,” McConnell said of Trump, before proceeding to criticize the Biden administration.
“And my view is we’re going to focus on this administration and the future, what they’re trying to do to the country, and make it a referendum in the fall of ’22 on how people feel about this new government they narrowly elected while they continue a 50-50 Senate and a close score over in the House,” he said.
You can hear McConnell’s remarks in the video below.
Despite the fact that Democrats are in control of the senate,
Joe Manchin
Following the events of January 6th, Republicans signaled a willingness to understand how the insurrection happened. Terrified of Trump, though, most of them have changed their minds on that matter.
Mitch McConnell understands that a commission will be very bad politically for Republicans. So he is urging them to vote against the bill. And that Republican resistance has driven some Democrats nut, specifically Montana’s Jon Tester.
Tester told Politico on Thursday, “
We’ve got to get to the bottom of this sh*t.
