Trump Claims McConnell ‘Doesn’t Speak’ for GOP After Senator Condemns RNC Defense of January 6 Riot
© REUTERS / SHANNON STAPLETON
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In the latest exchange of barbs among Republican leaders, former US President Donald Trump claimed the US was “weak and embarrassed” because of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) refusal to support the January 6, 2021, insurrection by Trump supporters.
“Mitch McConnell does not speak for the Republican Party, and does not represent the views of the vast majority of its voters. He did nothing to fight for his constituents and stop the most fraudulent election in American history,” Trump said in a statement carried by the right-wing media networks that support him.
“If Mitch would have fought for the election, like the Democrats would have if in the same position, we would not be discussing any of the above today, and our Country would be STRONG and PROUD instead of weak and embarrassed,” Trump added.
His targeting of the Senate minority leader comes a day after McConnell criticized the Republican National Committee (RNC) for censuring two GOP lawmakers for sitting on a House committee probing the January 6 insurrection.
On February 4, the RNC Resolutions Committee unanimously voted to condemn Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) for “participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse” and disavowing all support for them by the party or its members.
In addition to such a strongly pro-Trump position, the RNC’s resolution aroused particular ire by referring to the violent assault on the US national legislature by Trump supporters on January 6, 2021, as “legitimate political discourse.” The assault saw five people killed and Congress temporarily dispersed while they were engaged in an action mandated by the US Constitution: the certification of the results of the November 2020 US presidential election, which Joe Biden won.
Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington
© AP Photo / John Minchillo
The attackers failed to gain control over the election results, and after they were forced from the building by police and National Guard soldiers, federal lawmakers returned and completed the certification process. Several previously pro-Trump Republican lawmakers, like then-Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler, were visibly shaken by the events and turned against the president, while others have remained defiantly supportive.
“It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next,'' McConnell said Tuesday in response to the RNC censure.
The leading Republican senator said he still has confidence in RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, but that “the issue is whether or not the RNC should be sort of singling out members of our party who may have different views than the majority. That's not the job of the RNC.''
In the aftermath of the January 2021 events, McConnell joined Cheney and several other Republican members of Congress in supporting the Democrat-led impeachment of Trump, although in the Senate trial that was held that February, McConnell and a minority of senators voted to acquit the by-then-former president and Trump escaped legal censure.
However, McConnell wasn’t the only Republican to fire back at the RNC’s excommunication of Cheney and Kinzinger: Sen. John Cornyn of Texas blasted the committee, saying its actions were not “unifying,” and Alabama Senator Richard Shelby said the party should preserve a diversity of positions.
Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Mitt Romney (R-UT), two of the party’s leading members, also reportedly contacted McDaniel personally to discuss the matter.
Romney, who is McDaniel’s uncle, told reporters on Tuesday that the resolution “could not have been a more inappropriate" message from the GOP.
“Anything that my party does that comes across as being stupid is not going to help us,” Romney said.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said the Trump supporters who “broke windows and breached the Capitol were not engaged in legitimate political discourse, and to say otherwise is absurd.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) adopted a more middling position, saying that Kinzinger and Cheney were “not helpful” by being on the January 6 Select Committee, which is subpoenaing many leading Republicans, members of Trump’s administration, and Trump sympathizers, such as Infowars owner Alex Jones.
However, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), a strong supporter of Trump’s claim that Biden usurped the November 2020 election via massive voter fraud, which motivated the insurrectionists on January 6, said it was a distraction for Republicans to be “bashing other Republicans.”
“If you come to the state of Missouri and talk to Republicans, people who are going to be voting in our primary, they probably agree with what the RNC did,'' Hawley said.
McDaniel has tried to unring that bell, writing in a Townhall op-ed on Tuesday that the phrase “legitimate political discourse” referred to the peaceful protesters, not those who stormed the Capitol building. The RNC chair noted she had “repeatedly condemned the violence that occurred at the Capitol on January 6th” and blamed the “corporate news media” for twisting the resolution’s words.
