Jimmy Kimmel Offers Stark Reality Check With a Reminder to ‘Spineless Little’ Mitch McConnell
Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel lambasted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), delivering a scathing reminder of McConnell's past comments about Donald Trump. Kimmel’s segment was triggered by a recent event in Washington, where McConnell and other GOP lawmakers met with Trump, and McConnell publicly expressed his support for the former president, per HuffPost.
This is despite McConnell’s past declaration that “there’s no question” Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the January 6 Capitol insurrection and despite Trump’s history of attacking McConnell and hurling racist insults at his wife, Elaine Chao. Kimmel seized on the moment to emphasize the disconnect between McConnell's previous condemnation of Trump and his current political actions.
Kimmel juxtaposed footage from 2021 where the Senate Leader explicitly attacks Trump with McConnell’s current stance, and in his biting critique, the late-night host labeled McConnell as a “spineless little Mitch.”
As Donald Trump, ahead of the 2024 election, visited with Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill, McConnell seemed to have put the past with former President Donald Trump behind him. Remarkably, considering their strained relationship following Trump's attempt to overturn his 2020 election defeat, which resulted in a violent uprising at the U.S. Capitol, the two men even shook hands.
This was McConnell's first conversation with Trump since December 2020, before the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, per Yahoo! News. The meeting took place at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is located next to the Capitol. “We had a really positive meeting,” McConnell told reporters afterward. “He and I got a chance to talk, we shook hands a few times. He got a lot of standing ovations, it was an entirely positive meeting ... I can’t think of anything to tell you out of it that was negative.”
Seated beside Trump at a large rectangular table adorned with a red tablecloth, McConnell enthusiastically cheered as Senate Republicans gave the president a cake on his 78th birthday, The Hill reported. Senators said that despite Trump's continuous insistence on having McConnell removed as Senate GOP leader because he rejected Trump's attempt to obstruct the certification of Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election, Trump now attempted to compliment McConnell to his colleagues.
“The president spoke favorably about Mitch, about all the work he did to try to hold the conference together,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Ky.). “He was very complimentary.” Another senator, who requested anonymity, agreed, “He said about 2022, that ‘Mitch, it wasn’t really your fault that we lost Senate seats and it wasn’t my fault. That was a gracious thing. And then he said later on, ‘I know. Mitch, you’ve always worked really hard to increase the number of [Senate] Republicans. Given the history of their relationship, I thought that was [Trump] really offering an olive branch, being very, very warm,” the lawmaker said.
