GOP Wants Trump to Cool it With McConnell; Trump Turns Up the Heat

Two stories posted on Political Wire near each other (probably deliberately) caught my attention. First:

Republicans pray for truce after Trump attacks on McConnell (Politico)

Though the Senate GOP is tantalizingly close to retaking the majority next year and largely united in opposition to President Joe Biden’s agenda, the ongoing feud between the former president and the Senate minority leader has decayed to an entirely untenable place. Trump’s insult-laden diatribe against McConnell this weekend signals that the GOP could splinter badly in primaries next year — and raises the question of whether McConnell and Trump can work together at all.

GOP Senators are mostly gritting their teeth and hoping the feud dies down, so they can get on with the business of snatching back the Senate. But Trump isn’t helping; instead, he’s threatening to primary Senators who didn’t kiss his ring slobberingly enough. Plus he’ sucking up more money than the NRSC.

Republicans can’t quite grin their way through the current schism. Just this year, Trump asked donors to give to his own political group instead of GOP campaign committees. And McConnell takes intense interest in pivotal Senate races, maneuvering to anoint his preferred candidates and make strategic decisions about where to engage.

So it’s easy to see how continued discord will hinder the GOP’s efforts to take back the Senate majority next year. That’s why Republicans are ready for the Trump and Mitch Show to wrap up its latest plot line.

A little over an hour after the Politico story, the Hill reported:

Trump: McConnell ‘helpless’ to stop Biden from packing court

“With leaders like Mitch McConnell, they are helpless to fight.  He didn’t fight for the Presidency, and he won’t fight for the Court,” Trump said in a statement released by the Save America PAC. “If and when this happens, I hope the Justices remember the day they didn’t have courage to do what they should have done for America.”

McConnell is the guy who stopped Obama from replacing Scalia for almost a year, and then jammed through Trump’s pick, Amy Comey Barrett, in under three weeks. Not to mention that he has connived with Trump to pack the district and circuit courts with young (and mostly unqualified) conservatives. But none of that matters because McConnell wouldn’t help Trump steal the election. McConnell is “helpless.”

It’s long been clear that Trump’s insane promoting of the big lie that his election was “stolen” from him is doing great damage to our democracy. It’s also becoming equally clear that it’s doing great damage to the Republican party.

Popcorn, anyone?