McConnell called Trump "stupid" and "despicable" after 2020 election: new book
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Sen. Mitch McConnell at a news conference in February 2022. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) lambasted former President Trump as "despicable" and a "narcissist" after the 2020 election, according to a soon-to-be-released biography drawing on McConnell's diaries and private remarks.
Why it matters: The comments shed further light on McConnell's acrimonious relationship with Trump, whom he previously accused of provoking the events of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Driving the news: AP journalist Michael Tackett's forthcoming new biography of McConnell, "The Price of Power," drew from years of interviews with the Senate leader and his recorded diaries, AP reported.
- Following the 2020 election, McConnell privately called Trump a "despicable human being" and said he was "stupid as well as being ill-tempered."
- The comments were drawn from McConnell's personal oral histories that he made available to Tackett and were made in the weeks before the Capitol riot, as Trump tried to challenge his election loss, per AP.
- Trump's loss showed that the American people had had "enough of the misrepresentations, the outright lies almost on a daily basis, and they fired him," McConnell said in his oral history.
- "It's not just the Democrats who are counting the days" until Trump leaves office, he added.
Yes, but: In a statement to AP Thursday, McConnell said that whatever criticisms he'd made of Trump paled in comparison to remarks made about Trump from fellow Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Trump's current running-mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) in 2016.
- "We are all on the same team now," McConnell said.
Context: Trump and McConnell did not speak for years after the 2020 election.
- However, McConnell ultimately endorsed Trump in the 2024 race — a move that seemingly acknowledged the full MAGA takeover of the GOP.
- Trump previously blasted McConnell as a "dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack," AP reported. Trump had also previously insulted McConnell's wife Elaine Chao with racist remarks.
What to watch: "The Price of Power" will be released one week before Election Day, on Oct. 29.
Go deeper: Trump, McConnell finally meet again, with a fist bump
