New book reveals what McConnell called Trump behind his back after the 2020 election

WASHINGTON (AP) Mitch McConnell said after the 2020 election that then-President Donald Trump was stupid and moody, “a despicable human being” and a narcissist, according to excerpts from a new biography of the Republican leader of the Senate who will be released this month.

McConnell made the remarks privately as part of a series of personal oral histories he made available to Michael Tackett, deputy Washington bureau chief of The Associated Press. Tackett's book, The Price of Power, draws on nearly three decades of McConnell's recorded diaries and years of interviews with the usually reticent Kentucky Republican.

READ MORE: McConnell, who once blamed Trump for shameful Jan. 6 attack, backs him for president

The animosity between Trump and McConnell is well known. Trump once called McConnell a “dour, sullen, unsmiling political hack.” But McConnell's private comments constitute by far his bluntest assessment of the former president and could be echoed by Democrats ahead of the Nov. 5 election. The biography will be released on October 29, a week before election day which will decide Trump's return to the White House.

Despite these strong words, McConnell has supported Trump's 2024 candidacy, saying earlier this year that it should not be surprising that he supports the Republican Party's nominee. He shook Trump's hand in June when Trump visited Republican senators on Capitol Hill.

McConnell, 82, announced this year that he would step down as Republican leader after the election but would remain in the Senate until his term ends in 2026.

McConnell was counting down the days until Trump leaves office

The comments about Trump cited in the book came in the weeks leading up to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. Trump was then actively trying to reverse his defeat against Democrat Joe Biden. McConnell feared it would hurt Republicans in Georgia's two runoff elections and cost them the majority in the Senate. Democrats won both races.

Publicly, McConnell had congratulated Biden after the Electoral College certified the presidential vote and the senator warned his fellow Republicans not to contest the results. But he didn't say much else. Privately, he said in his oral history that it's not just Democrats who are counting down the days until Trump leaves office, and that Trump's behavior only underscores the good judgment of the American people. They just got tired of the misrepresentations, the outright lies almost on a daily basis, and they fired him.

This despicable human being, McConnell said in his oral history, is sitting on this relief package that the American people desperately need.

And for a narcissist like him, McConnell continued, that's been really hard to accept, and so his behavior since the election has been even worse, by far, than before, because he has no filter now.

Before the Georgia runoff elections, McConnell said Trump was stupid, moody and couldn't even understand where his own interests lie.

At the time, Trump was also delaying a coronavirus aid package, despite bipartisan support. This despicable human being, McConnell said in his oral history, is sitting on this relief package that the American people desperately need.

On January 6, shortly after making the comments, McConnell holed up in a secure location with other congressional leaders, calling on Vice President Mike Pence and military officials for reinforcements as Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. Once the Senate resumed debate on the certification of Biden's victory, McConnell said in a speech that this failed attempt to obstruct Congress, this failed insurrection, only underscores how great a task lies ahead. is crucial to our republic.

McConnell then went to his office to address his staff, some of whom had barricaded themselves in the office as rioters knocked on their doors. He began to sob quietly as he thanked them, Tackett writes.

You are my family and I hate that you had to go through this, he told them.

The following month, McConnell issued his harshest public criticism of Trump in the Senate, saying he was practically and morally responsible for the January 6 attack. Yet McConnell voted to acquit Trump after House Democrats impeached him for inciting the riot.

Years of doubts and criticism

In a statement to the AP on Thursday, McConnell referenced two other Republican senators, vice presidential candidate JD Vance of Ohio and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, both of whom are staunch Trump allies after harshly criticizing him during his first campaign in 2016.

Whatever I've said about President Trump pales in comparison to what JD Vance, Lindsey Graham and others have said about him, but we're all on the same team now, McConnell said .

McConnell also had doubts about Trump from the start. Just after Trump's election in 2016, as Congress was certifying the election, McConnell told Biden, then the outgoing vice president, that he thought Trump could pose problems, Tackett writes.

The book channels McConnell's inner thoughts during some of the most important moments after Trump took office, as McConnell held his tongue and the two men repeatedly fought and made up.

In 2017, as Trump publicly criticized McConnell for the Senate's failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Trump and McConnell got into a heated argument over the phone. Weeks passed without contact. Then Trump invited McConnell to the White House and called a joint press conference without telling him first. McConnell said the event went well and it wasn't difficult to sound more competent than Donald Trump at a news conference.

After passing a $1.5 trillion tax overhaul that same year, McConnell said, “All of a sudden I'm Trump's new best friend.”

I can't think of anyone I'd rather be criticized by than this scumbag.

He blamed Trump after House Republicans lost their majority in the 2018 midterm elections, Tackett writes. Trump has all the characteristics you wouldn't want a president to have, McConnell said in an oral history at the time, and he wasn't very smart, irascible, mean.

In 2022, as Trump continued to criticize McConnell and made racist comments toward his wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, McConnell told Tackett that I can't think of anyone I'd rather be criticized by how sordid.

Every time he shoots me, I think it's good for my reputation, McConnell said.

Also in 2022, McConnell said in his oral history that Trump's behavior since his election loss had been more than erratic as he continued to push false claims of election fraud. Unfortunately, about half of the country's Republicans believe everything he says, McConnell said.

In 2024, McConnell had once again supported Trump. He believed he had to do this if he wanted to continue to play a role in shaping the national agenda.

This was the price he paid for power, Tackett writes.

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