Mitch McConnell's preemptive strike on GOP isolationism
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Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) arrives for the Senate Republican leadership elections at the Capitol last month. Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is launching a preemptive strike against the isolationists in his own party, warning of the "price of American retreat" in a new essay for Foreign Affairs.
Why it matters: McConnell is putting Trump — and the entire Republican party — on notice that he plans to be an active combatant in the looming GOP civil war on foreign policy.
- "America will not be made great again by those who simply want to manage its decline," McConnell writes in a 5,000-word piece posted this morning.
- "Trump would be wise to build his foreign policy on the enduring cornerstone of U.S. leadership: hard power."
The big picture: McConnell has said he will feel "liberated" once he leaves leadership to criticize Democrats and Republicans alike. As the chair of the Defense appropriations subcommittee, he'll have a powerful perch to advance his agenda.
- But his essay is full of appeals to Trump, who he once called "stupid" and "despicable." McConnell, a master negotiator, is leaving plenty of room for a productive relationship with the next president.
- He is also unsparing in his criticism of the last two Democratic presidents.
- "Donald Trump will inherit a world far more hostile to U.S. interests than the one he left behind four years ago," he writes. "But the response to four years of weakness must not be four years of isolation."
Driving the news: Congressional support for Ukraine will likely emerge as the first flashpoint between "American First" isolationists and more traditional Republican hawks.
- Trump, who met with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris last weekend, wants to broker a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia.
- He used the recent ouster of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to argue that the time is right for both sides to "make a deal and stop the madness."
- McConnell has been a staunch supporter of sending aid and munitions to Ukraine and was critical in helping to pass a $60 billion package in April.
- The legislation passed, but with only 22 Republican senators supporting it, a minority in the party. "I sort of felt like I was the only Reagan Republican left," he said at the time.
Zoom out: As the longest-serving Senate leader in history, McConnell has long been a champion of the kind of muscular interventionism that defined the Republican party during the Cold War and the post-9/11 aftermath.
- He supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and then the 2007 troop "surge" pushed by then-President Bush to defeat an Iraqi insurgency that was inflicting heavy casualties on U.S. troops.
- He has long been a hawk on China, as well as a reliable voice in support of Taiwan. He backed then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi on her visit to Taiwan, in defiance of China's disapproval.
- More recently, he's been deeply critical of his Republican colleagues for supporting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Zoom in: With the Foreign Affairs article, McConnell appears to be writing with an eye on future fights in addition to his own legacy — and is clearly concerned about the number of threats America faces.
- "Standing up to China will require Trump to reject the myopic advice that he prioritize that challenge by abandoning Ukraine," he writes.
The bottom line: He reserves some of his harshest criticism for Democrats in an attempt to convince Trump that isolationism can have consequences.
- "In the Middle East, Obama's premature withdrawal from Iraq left a vacuum for Iran and the Islamic State," he writes.
