Amid his refusal to concede, then-President Trump reportedly clued-in Senate Republican leaders about a far-fetched plan to stay in office weeks after losing the 2020 presidential election.
In Dec. 2020, Trump reportedly expressed confidence to then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and other top Republicans that he could subvert the election results. The then-President’s reported plan involved successfully pressuring Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) to decertify Joe Biden’s narrow win in Georgia, which Trump believe would set off a domino effect.
In a excerpt obtained by CNN of an upcoming book by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, titled “This Will Not Pass,” Trump reportedly told Senate GOP leaders in a private Dec. 2020 phone call that he had personally been working the phones with officials in Pennsylvania and Michigan in an effort to overturn Biden’s electoral victory.
“I’ve been calling folks in those states and they’re with us,” Trump reportedly told Senate GOP leaders in Dec. 2020, according to the book.
Trump’s reported plan never came to fruition.
Kemp became one of Trump’s punching bags when he refused to play along with the former president’s election fraud falsehoods after Biden won the state of Georgia. Trump has endorsed former Georgia senator and GOP gubernatorial candidate David Perdue — and has continued knocking Kemp while doing so. In his first TV ad stumping for Perdue, the former president paints Kemp as someone who caved to Democrats when Trump tried to pressure him to overturn Georgia’s election results.
Trump and McConnell haven’t spoken since McConnell acknowledged Biden’s win after states certified the electoral results in Dec. 2020.
The former president has continued his ongoing crusade against McConnell, vowing to get him booted as leader for supposed insufficient loyalty. Trump’s repeated attacks towards McConnell began in the aftermath of the minority leader condemning Trump for his role in inciting the deadly Capitol insurrection. Trump has also reportedly floated a recruitment effort to oust McConnell from his leadership perch if Republicans take back the Senate in 2022.
Trump also routinely takes swipes at McConnell whenever the minority leader joins Democrats in helping score legislative victories — which includes McConnell voting to help pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill last year, an issue that the former president couldn’t seem to get off the ground during his four-year term.
But for McConnell, shrugging off Trump’s attacks have become a regular practice even as Trump allies such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) threaten to vote against the Senate GOP leader if he doesn’t “effectively work” with Trump.
“Every reporter in town, including, I’m sure, you, have been probing to find one for months, right?” McConnell snarked to the Washington Examiner in February, referring to a potential challenger to his re-election bid as leader. “Have you found one?”
