Mitch McConnell spent decades chasing power. Now he heeds Trump, who mocks him and wants him gone.

Keith Preston

5 years ago

Division within as well as between the parties is almost always a good thing.

How one of Washington’s longtime Republican power players succumbed to the preeminence of the 45th president.

As President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell was whisked to a secret location and cloistered with a handful of other top lawmakers.

The senator from Kentucky had spent the past four years as one of Trump’s chief enablers, boosting his election by keeping a Supreme Court seat open, pushing through his agenda with party-line votes and standing by for weeks as Trump falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen. But their marriage of political convenience had abruptly shattered three weeks earlier, when Trump exploded at McConnell for acknowledging Joe Biden’s victory.

Safely huddled with Democratic leaders as they watched video of police battling Trump supporters in the Capitol, McConnell reacted with anger and revulsion, according to Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), who was also in the secure location.

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