McConnell, free from leadership constraints, bucks Trump and the evolving GOP
CNN
Sen. Mitch McConnell was a generational force for the Republican Party — using procedural tactics and political will to stymie much of former President Barack Obama’s agenda, hand President Donald Trump key first-term political victories and deliver a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority. Now he’s the odd man out.
Sen. Mitch McConnell was a generational force for the Republican Party — using procedural tactics and political will to stymie much of former President Barack Obama’s agenda, hand President Donald Trump key first-term political victories and deliver a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority. Now he’s the odd man out. Weeks after relinquishing his leadership post as a new GOP majority was sworn into office, McConnell finds himself, likely in the final stage of his career, untethered from the party he’d led, in turns as minority and majority leader, since 2007. He has cast a trio of votes against Trump’s Cabinet nominees — putting him at odds with nearly all Senate Republicans. He opposed Pete Hegseth for defense secretary, citing the former Fox News host’s lack of experience and clear vision for how to counter China’s aggression toward Taiwan. He was the sole GOP vote against Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, criticizing the former Hawaii Democratic congresswoman’s “history of alarming lapses in judgment.” And on Thursday, McConnell, a childhood polio survivor, cast the only Republican vote against Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, saying Kennedy “failed to prove he is the best possible person to lead America’s health agency.” McConnell has also publicly lamented the GOP’s Trump-fueled drift away from positions that he still holds dear – in support of free trade and a muscular foreign policy.
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