During an interview with MSNBC’s Alex Witt on Saturday, former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci argued that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell should break from Donald Trump amid the revelations in Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book, Raw Story reported.
Scaramucci said that McConnell’s refusal to comment on the book and Trump’s remarks within it are a sign that the president is “obviously indefensible.” The former White House official pointed to former President John Kennedy’s suggestion that the political world is low on courage, a comment referring to his difficulty finding senators who would break ranks with their party out of patriotism during the writing of Profiles in Courage .
“I respect Mitch McConnell, I’ve raised money for McConnell, but McConnell knows better,” Scaramucci said.
“I’m hoping that he can get into his social conscience and recognize with a full patriotism the danger of Donald Trump. We need to rebuild this party, this party has become a personality cult, the party has lost its principles. We don’t even have a platform coming out of the Republican Convention. This is the greatest schism in this party since the Reagan-Ford schism, and it’s certainly worse than that cause at least those two guys were patriots, Alex.”
Trump’s acknowledgment of the severity of the coronavirus during an interview with Woodward has sparked theories that the revelation could harm the Republican Party in November.
Former Republican Rep. David Jolly has posited this scenario and believes that Trump has been put on the defense close to the election and is failing to generate support from the 35 percent of the country he needs to convince to vote for him in November.
Nevertheless, Republican members of Congress don’t appear to be fazed by the revelations. As reported by ABC News , many have claimed not to have read the book yet and avoided condemning the president’s comments.
When McConnell was pressed on the interview, he argued that the U.S. leader should be praised for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Although McConnell claimed not to have read Woodward’s publication, he said Trump took “positive steps very early on” to control the pandemic.
Per CNN , McConnell is in the crucial position of having to keep a handle on the latest Trump controversies while ensuring that the GOP maintains control of the Senate in the forthcoming election.
As CNN noted, McConnell often avoids getting involved in such controversy while at the same time maintaining a close relationship with Trump to ensure that he plays into the long-term strategy designed to keep the upper chamber.