Mitch McConnell Is Helping ‘Destroy The Establishment GOP,’ Commentator Says
Political commentator John Cardillo — who supported former President Donald Trump — claimed on Tuesday that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is aiding in the destruction of establishment Republicans.
“McConnell is helping us destroy the establishment GOP,” he tweeted. “Voting for conviction in a sham ‘trial’ presided over by Leahy, one of the prosecutors and jurors, is the definition of a kangaroo court and any Republican following Mitch is guaranteed to lose their next primary.”
Trump supporters previously expressed their desire to “destroy the GOP” at a rally for the former president, Rolling Stone reported. The calls came just under a month before the Republican Party lost the upper chamber after Trump upended McConnell’s negotiations for coronavirus stimulus legislation with Democrats.
According to CNN, McConnell has privately acknowledged that he wants Trump “gone.”
“It is in his political interest to have him gone. It is in the GOP interest to have him gone. The question is, do we get there?” a Republican member of Congress told the publication.
Although McConnell has yet to publicly commit to voting to convict Trump, he is reportedly scared of the backlash from corporate America in response to the Capitol riots which paved the way for the second impeachment trial against the former president.
Elsewhere, The Guardian reported that McConnell is facing pressure on how to handle the forthcoming impeachment trial in the Senate. The publication noted that he faces dissidence from anti-establishment colleagues like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, who both supported Trump’s bid to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Although the outlet noted that McConnell has battled with Cruz and his allies before and was able to effectively deal with them, the politician now has less power amid pressures from other lawmakers.
According to Scott Reed, a former senior political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, McConnell is playing the “long game.”
“He plays the long game. He does not play the short next few months game at all. He’s playing ’22 and ’24 today.”
McConnell’s post-riot break with Trump has placed him in the crosshairs of Trump supporters. As The Inquisitr reported, Cardillo previously claimed that the 78-year-old politician was the one who prevented Trump from offering pardons to Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Ross Ulbricht. According to the commentator, McConnell — along with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer — held the pardons hostage by threatening to convict the former U.S. leader in the upper chamber if he pardoned the previously mentioned individuals.
