There’s chatter today about whether or not Trump’s call to depose Mitch McConnell has any traction. So far his loyal minions in the Senate are saying no, even Tommy Tuberville!
Mr. Trump has spoken recently with senators and allies about trying to depose Mr. McConnell and whether any Republicans are interested in mounting a challenge, according to people familiar with the conversations. There is little appetite among Senate Republicans for such a plan, lawmakers and aides said, but the discussions risk driving a wedge deeper between the most influential figure in the Republican Party and its highest-ranking member in elected office.
Since failing to be re-elected, the former president has maintained high levels of support among conservative voters, and polls show he has convinced much of the party that the 2020 results were fraudulent. Mr. McConnell has said that President Biden won the election and that Mr. Trump’s “wild falsehoods” about the outcome were responsible for the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol.
They have also split on policy this year. Mr. McConnell joined 18 fellow Senate Republicans in voting for a roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, despite Mr. Trump saying the deal “makes the Republicans look weak, foolish, and dumb.”
The feud between the two men threatens to splinter the party when Republicans could be building momentum in their bid to recapture control of Congress next year. As polls have shown Mr. Biden’s approval rating dipping below 50% this summer—a troubling signal for Democrats’ political fortunes—the two Republican septuagenarians remain divided over how to tilt the balance of a 50-50 Senate back toward their party.
In a recent interview, Mr. Trump declined to discuss whether he was recruiting challengers for Mr. McConnell. The former president did say he wanted Senate Republicans to oust the Kentuckian from the leadership position he has held for almost 15 years.
“They ought to,” Mr. Trump said. “I think he’s very bad for the Republican Party.”
The Senators aren’t going to turn on Mitch solely because Trump wants them to. He’s very powerful and he’s quite effective for their goals, particularly when it comes to pleasing their rich benefactors.
Political-action committees run by allies of Mr. McConnell—including the Senate Leadership Fund, American Crossroads and various state-specific groups—spent $462.5 million in helping to elect Republicans in 2020.
In the first six months of 2021, Mr. Trump stockpiled $102 million in political cash. He reported no donations to Republican campaigns during that time.
However, that doesn’t mean McConnell is safe. I would just remind everyone that the rabid base of the GOP wields just as much power. Trump can’t take out McConnell — he was just re-elected. But he can make big trouble for the Senators who protect him by activating his cult on this issue.
It’s happened before, even prior to Trump’s full takeover of the party:
Paul Ryan was not popular in West Virginia on Thursday, the mention of his name drawing boos from a crowd of supporters at a Donald Trump rally in Charleston.
Pastor Mark Burns fired up the audience by criticizing the House Speaker’s comments that he could not currently support the presumptive Republican nominee.
“On CNN, we’re told that Paul Ryan said, ‘I will never endorse Donald Trump,” Burns exclaimed prior to Trump’s entrance, which drew loud boos from the crowd of supporters.
(Ryan actually said he was “just not ready” to endorse Trump, though “I hope to.”)
By the way, Ryan did endorse Trump. But he was out within two years. The base hated him at the end.
In a shocker, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has lost the Republican primary in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District to a relatively unknown college professor, David Brat. Brat spent little money in the race; Cantor spent over a million dollars. The political media will spend days trying to figure out what happened, but here are a few quick thoughts.
First, this race had a heavy insider vs. outsider dynamic, and the tea party is definitely not dead. As my colleague Nate Silver pointed out previously, it was probably too early to call for the tea party’s demise. Cantor’s loss puts an exclamation point on that.
“He’s not going anywhere.” That’s what Kevin Smith, the communications director for the Speaker of the House, said about his boss, John Boehner, in a Time article published Thursday. “If there’s a small crew of members who think that he’s just going to pick up and resign in the middle of his term, they are going to be sadly mistaken,” he said.
But just a day later, a small crew of House members who wanted Boehner gone got their wish. On Friday, Boehner told his fellow House Republicans that he would quit the post at the end of October. He apparently was bowing to pressure from some members of the Freedom Caucus, a group of more than 30 of the most conservative Republicans who wanted Boehner to push harder to defund Planned Parenthood, even if it meant shutting down the government next week. If all members of the caucus had voted to oust Boehner, he would not have had a Republican majority to keep his job.
Don’t think it can’t happen to Mitch. It’s unlikely but not impossible.