Senator Mitch McConnell categorically blamed President Trump on Tuesday for the violent riot at the Capitol on January 6, saying the crowd that broke into the building was “fed with lies” and “provoked by the president” to carry out his attack.
McConnell’s comments, on the eve of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s inauguration, were the clearest sign of the most powerful Republican left in Washington that, after four years apologizing and empowering Trump, he has come to regard the President as leaving as a force that can drag the party down if it is not firmly uprooted by its leaders.
McConnell, who believes in particular that Trump committed impugnable crimes, gave no indication as to whether he would vote to condemn Trump in his impeachment trial on a single charge of “inciting insurrection”. But it was a notable condemnation of the senator, who will take a leading role in determining whether enough Republicans join Democrats to plead guilty, allowing them to disqualify him from taking office in the future.
“The crowd was fed with lies,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “They were provoked by the president and other powerful people. And they tried to use fear and violence to prevent a specific process from the first branch of the federal government that they didn’t like ”.
In an apparent criticism of Trump, who continues to insist that he won the election, McConnell also called Biden “the clear choice of the people for his 46th president” and promised to “move forward” with the new administration – although he only extended an arm to Republicans .
The move was undoubtedly a calculated risk for the leader, whose power derives from party unity and who has unequivocally benefited from Trump’s mandate, as the president and Senate Republicans have come together to cut taxes and confirm hundreds of judges conservative. Public opinion polls suggest that most Republican voters believe Trump’s allegations of widespread fraud. And the president, who remains by far the most popular figure in his party, has threatened to take revenge on any elected official who contradicts him in the form of costly primary challenges that could rot in the years to come. Many of them are McConnell’s closest allies.
The reaction was immediate on Tuesday.
“The only lies that have been fed are that Joe Biden won the election,” Amy Kremer, leader of the pro-Trump Women for America First group and leader in the “Stop the Steal” campaign, wrote on Twitter, commenting on the video of Mr. McConnell’s speech. She described it with a corral epithet. “If you think the Pres Trump base is going anywhere,” she added, “you are sorely mistaken.”
At Fox News, Sean Hannity dedicated his opening monologue to criticizing McConnell, demanding a new Republican leadership in the Senate. He called McConnell “king of the Republicans of the establishment” and accused him of “shrinking in fear, withering under the pressure of the media crowd, liberal Democrats and big tech companies” rather than fighting for Trump’s agenda.
Some of McConnell’s colleagues retreated more gently, but his words emphasized the significant break in the remarkably cohesive Republican ranks.
“I’m looking for our leadership to recognize that what’s best for the Republican Party and the country is the same,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. “Moving.”
But McConnell’s allies say he is increasingly concerned that if the party leaders do not intervene, the president’s campaign to discredit his own defeat could cause lasting damage to both democracy and the Republicans’ political fortune, leading to them to a permanent minority in Washington. They pointed out that Trump led the party while losing the White House, the House and the Senate in just a short period.
Corporate America, long a mainstay of Republican power, has already severed ties with many senior Republicans. Suburban voters who fled the party en masse during Trump’s term are also looking with disgust. And if Trump’s fervent supporters come to believe en masse that the elections are rigged, it could slow their turnout before the 2022 elections, when Republicans hope to recover the House and Senate.
“If we spend the semester and the next presidential election litigating whether Donald Trump won or lost, we will lose,” said Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist close to McConnell.
The majority leader, he added, is “thinking about the bottom line for the American people: can we trust these Republicans with high-level positions in our government?”
Jennings acknowledged that it was not an easy task, but argued that the party needed to rebuild itself around conservative political principles, rather than polarizing personalities.
“Hopefully, more Republicans see it his way than the dead end who continue to believe the election was illegitimate,” he said.
However, unlike the Senate, the majority of Republicans in the House still strongly support Trump and appear determined to carry on his type of combative politics, including his false allegations of electoral fraud.
McConnell’s counterpart in the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, pointed a finger at Trump, saying the president should have spoken to stop the turmoil, but he did not take a complete break.
In a speech before last week’s impeachment vote, McCarthy said “the president is responsible for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mafia rebels”. But he also opposed impeachment. And just a week earlier, even after the crowd invaded Capitol, he was among the majority of Republicans who voted twice to withdraw votes from the Electoral College for Biden that Trump and his allies falsely claimed to be invalid.
McConnell’s tactics and the extent to which his Senate colleagues share his views will become much clearer in the coming days, when the Senate starts its second Trump impeachment trial in just over a year.
Although Trump is no longer in office, the lawsuit will present Republicans with a unique opportunity to disqualify him for one day from taking office again if 17 of them join the 50 Democrats to plead guilty. That possibility will guarantee a complex political and constitutional calculation and may well lead ordinary Republicans to conclude that the party is better off if it does not provoke Trump more indignation.
McConnell was careful to leave his options open before the trial and does not plan to commit to a conviction or acquittal before hearing the case.
But so far he has set a tone very different from what he had done just a year ago, when he declared that “I am not an impartial judge” and went on to define the rules of the trial at the request of the White House that would strangle the case and favor Democrats A Mr. Trump’s final acquittal. Now he has told allies that he has ended Trump and is doing nothing to persuade senators to support him, instead he considers the impeachment vote a matter of conscience.
Half a dozen Republican senators have indicated that they believe Trump’s offense was serious, but others seemed to be watching McConnell closely for clues.
“I think it’s a good way to put it,” said Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican and an ally of McConnell, echoing the language McConnell used to describe the vote. “I will listen to what is presented,” he added.
The timing of the trial itself remained in limbo on Tuesday, while leaders worked behind the scenes to develop a set of rules to govern the process and the broader balance of power in the Senate, which after Wednesday will be divided into 50 to 50. Impeachment trials are Normally, issues consume everything, paralyzing all Senate work, and Democrats were adamant that this time both sides would find a way to try Trump simultaneously and confirm the main members of Biden’s cabinet .
“We are doing the inauguration now,” spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi said on Tuesday, dismissing questions about when she would forward the House’s accusation, leading to the start of the trial.
Democrats will retain control because Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will have the power to sever relations with the Senate, but Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, will need at least some cooperation from McConnell to run the chamber. and make things happen.
Even as he tried to isolate Trump, McConnell signaled to Democrats that he intended to be the party fighter who had angered them for years, insisting on private negotiations that pledge to leave the obstruction if they want their cooperation in any power-sharing agreement.
“Certainly the November election did not give either side a mandate for radical ideological change,” said McConnell in his speech. “Our marching orders for the American people are clear: we must have a robust discussion and seek common ground. We must seek a bipartisan agreement wherever we can, and verify and balance each other respectfully where necessary. “
Emily Cochrane contributed reports.