Former President Trump took his crusade against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) up a notch during his appearance at the RNC’s spring donor retreat on Saturday, when the former president went off-script to deride any Republican he views as lacking sufficient loyalty to him.
According to Politico and the Washington Post, the former president delivered an unhinged speech at the event at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach to issue more falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election and complain about Republicans who voted in favor of his impeachment, despite Trump’s calls for party unity.
Trump specifically singled out McConnell for supposedly not doing enough to defend him during the former president’s second impeachment trial for “incitement of insurrection.” McConnell initially scolded Trump on the Senate floor for inciting the mob behind the deadly Capitol insurrection earlier this year.
“If that were (Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer) instead of this dumb son of a bitch Mitch McConnell they would never allow it to happen. They would have fought it,” Trump said, referring to the joint session of Congress certifying Joe Biden’s formal victory that culminated in the deadly Capitol insurrection, according to the Post.
The Post and Politico reported that Trump launched more digs against McConnell, which included attacking the Senate minority leader’s wife Elaine Chao, who formerly served as transportation secretary under the Trump administration.
“I hired his wife. Did he ever say thank you?” Trump said, before going on to mock Chao for resigning on the day of the then-president’s disastrous response to the Capitol attack. “She suffered so greatly.”
The former president later derided McConnell as a “stone cold loser,” according to the Post.
Trump reportedly also aired more familiar grievances at the RNC spring donor retreat, saying that he was “disappointed” in former Vice President Mike Pence for certifying Biden’s election victory, spouting more falsehoods of widespread fraud during the presidential election election and mocking Dr. Anthony Fauci for his dire warnings on COVID-19 that the then-president repeatedly downplayed.
The former president did not indicate his plans for the 2024 election cycle while complaining about the election he lost last year as “bullshit.”
Trump’s latest dig at McConnell comes after the Senate minority leader tried to get back into Trump’s good graces by telling Fox News in February that he would “absolutely” support Trump if the former president were to run for office again in 2024. McConnell’s attempt to curry favor with Trump came after the former president issued a deranged and racist statement from his Save America PAC threatening to primary the Senate minority leader’s allies.
