The typically mild-mannered and tight-lipped Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell privately laced into former President Donald Trump and sobbed during the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol, an upcoming book claims.
McConnell (R-Ky.), 82, slammed Trump, 78, as “stupid,” “ill-tempered,” a “narcissist” and a “despicable human being” behind closed doors toward the end of his administration, according to a preview of the book “The Price of Power” from the Associated Press.
“It’s not just the Democrats who are counting the days” until Trump’s White House departure, McConnell told associates in confidence, per the AP.
“[Trump’s conduct] only underscores the good judgment of the American people. They’ve had just enough of the misrepresentations, the outright lies almost on a daily basis, and they fired him.”
“For a narcissist like him,” McConnell went on, “that’s been really hard to take, and so his behavior since the election has been even worse, by far, than it was before, because he has no filter now at all.”
The Senate GOP leader had also been agitated by Trump’s spewing of dubious election claims ahead of the Georgia runoff, where Republicans ultimately lost control of the upper chamber.
“This despicable human being,” McConnell later fumed about Trump, accusing him of delaying a COVID-19 relief package at the time. “[Trump] is sitting on this package of relief that the American people desperately need.”
Publicly, McConnell split from Trump during the certification of his 2020 electoral defeat, warning against taking “a poisonous path where only the winners of election actually accept the results.”
Several weeks later, despite opposing the second effort to impeach Trump, McConnell held the former president “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events” of Jan. 6, 2021.
But none of the Kentucky sage’s public rebukes of Trump were nearly as brutal as the account detailed in the forthcoming book, authored by the AP’s Washington bureau chief Michael Tackett and slated for release on Oct. 29.
After the rioters had been cleared from the Capitol and lawmakers returned from their secure location, the Kentucky senator addressed his staff and “started to sob softly,” according to the previewed book excepts.
“You are my family, and I hate the fact that you had to go through this,” McConnell said to them.
When asked about his private remarks, McConnell stressed that other Trump loyalists such as GOP vice presidential hopeful JD Vance and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have similarly bashed Trump in the past.
“Whatever I may have said about President Trump pales in comparison to what JD Vance, Lindsey Graham, and others have said about him, but we are all on the same team now,” McConnell said in a statement obtained by The Post.
Throughout his time in Republican leadership, McConnell gained a reputation for parsing his words very carefully and saying little, especially when questioned by the press.
Tackett got a peek into the enigmatic pol’s mindset by tapping into nearly three decades’ worth of his recorded diaries as well as from interviews with him.
McConnell’s tenure in the Senate, which began in 1985, spanned a dramatic transformation within the Republican Party from the Reagan era into Trump’s brand of populist politics.
Using his bully pulpit, McConnell has at times lamented some of the major changes within the party, particularly the lurch toward isolationism.
The 82-year-old’s apparent animosity against Trump has been mutual. The 45th president has sporadically lashed out at McConnell since his White House departure.
Trump has also hurled racially tinged slurs at McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, his former Transportation Secretary, whom he bashed as “Coco Chow.”
The pair met during Trump’s swing through Washington, DC, in June where the former president took a more conciliatory tact toward Republican lawmakers who had criticized him.
McConnell announced in February that he would step down as the GOP Senate leader by the end of this year. He helmed the Republican Senate Conference since 2007, making him the longest-serving Senate party leader on either side of the aisle in the country’s history.
Republican senators are expected to convene a private internal election next month to crown his successor after the Nov. 5 election.
