(Headline USA) Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., endorsed Donald Trump for president on Wednesday—a remarkable turnaround from the onetime critic who blamed the then-president for “disgraceful” acts in the Jan. 6, 2021, uprising but now supports his bid to return to the White House.
McConnell, who was the last top GOP leader in Congress to fall in line with Trump, declared his support in a short statement after Super Tuesday wins pushed the GOP front-runner closer to the party nomination.
McConnell, 82, one of the most unpopular figures on Capitol Hill given his deep divisiveness among both Democrats and pro-Trump Republicans, recently indicated that he would step down from his leadership role in the next congressional term, making his support for Trump somewhat superfluous.
Nonetheless, it marks another symbolic triumph for the MAGA leader over a powerful D.C. Establishment that has fought tooth-and-nail to destroy him—and another welcome step toward party unity given McConnell’s control over a wealth of GOP resources.
The nod from McConnell lends an imprimatur of institutional legitimacy to the indicted former president’s bid to return to the White House.
McConnell said he and Trump “worked together to accomplish great things for the American people.”
He noted in particular policies that “supercharged our economy and a generational change of our federal judiciary—most importantly, the Supreme Court.”
The two men have not spoken since 2020 when McConnell declared Democrat Joe Biden the winner of that year’s presidential election. But more recently, their teams had reopened talks about an endorsement.
“It is abundantly clear that former President Trump has earned the requisite support of Republican voters to be our nominee for President of the United States,” McConnell said in the statement.
McConnell said, “It should come as no surprise that as nominee, he will have my support.”
Trump now counts the GOP leaders in Congress, including Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Republicans vying to replace McConnell as leader, as backing his bid for the White House.
Another Republican in leadership, Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, announced her support for Trump on Wednesday after the last major GOP challenger Nikki Haley suspended her campaign.
While McConnell said early in the election cycle he would support the eventual Republican presidential nominee, his endorsement of Trump is a striking reunion for the two men, who have put political interests ahead of any personal displeasure with one another.
Trump routinely bashed McConnell as an “Old Crow” in public, and Trump hurled insults at the senator’s wife, Elaine Chao.
Chao, who served as Trump’s Transportation secretary, stepped down in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 protest—which McConnell labeled an “insurrection.”
While McConnell refused to convict Trump in the Senate trial on House impeachment charges of inciting the insurrection at the Capitol, which could have left him ineligible to serve again as president, he warned that Trump was not immune from civil or criminal prosecution once he left the White House.
“He didn’t get away with anything yet — yet,” McConnell said in the Senate at the time.
“We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation, and former presidents are not immune from being accountable by either one,” he said.
With McConnell’s endorsement of Trump, it gives the green light to other remaining skeptical Republicans—and the deep-pocketed donors who fuel campaigns—to fall in line.
Voters have roundly dismissed not only the two failed impeachment attempts against Trump, but also the four criminal cases and multiple other lawfare attacks that are designed to weaponized the justice system as an obstruction to the political process.
Despite having charged Trump with 91 felony counts, several of the cases pushed by far-left prosecutors seem ready to implode, giving even more momentum to the righteous indignation that has fueled Trump’s improbable winning streak.
Despite his concerns about Trump’s behavior in the White House, McConnell appears ready to set aside those issues in favor of the outcomes he said the former president was able to accomplish during his term.
McConnell said he looks forward to “switching from playing defense against the terrible policies the Biden administration has pursued” to going on offense on policies that he believes will make a difference.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
