‘Party before all else.’ What McConnell revealed in interview about his moral red line
Mitch McConnell drew some red lines clearly and often, as he is prone to do.
At many points during his 32-minute interview with Axios’ Jonathan Swan in Washington on Thursday, it was an open question why McConnell was even there and what he hoped to accomplish. (A spokesperson didn’t respond to a question about this.)
He was not going to engage in hypotheticals about a potential Supreme Court vacancy in 2023. He was not going to respond to a Republican Senate candidate in Missouri who has attacked him as a “disgusting coward.” He was not going to wax philosophical about why he’s so unpopular among voters in his own party across the country.
He wouldn’t even predict how many seats the GOP would hold after this midterm election.
“How many questions has he asked that I’ve refused to answer?” McConnell mused to the live audience as the interview drew to a close.
But in the middle of McConnell’s sustained campaign of evasion came a 3-minute exchange that many of his critics found troubling — but clarifying — and the interviewer categorized as downright “astonishing.”
It centered around Swan’s questions about McConnell’s moral red line — and where he would ever draw one in his pursuit for power. In essence, would McConnell ever prioritize a moral imperative over his loyalty to the Republican Party?
“I think he did answer the question,” said Michael Cohen, a liberal columnist and commentator based in Brooklyn who earlier weighed in on social media. “Party before all else.”
Swan first brought up McConnell’s tortured relationship with former President Donald Trump: His condemnation of Trump following the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection, dubbing him “practically and morally responsible” for the traumatic events of that day.
It was a moment, however brief, in which McConnell attempted to decisively sever Trump from his party. It didn’t last. Just weeks later, he said he’d still support Trump’s return to the White House if he became the Republican nominee again.
Square the two statements — sweeping denunciation followed by passive acceptance, Swan challenged.
“Well as the Republican leader of the Senate it should not be a front page headline that I will support the Republican nominee for president,” McConnell said.
“After you’ve said that about him I think it’s astonishing,” said Swan, referring to McConnell’s indictment of Trump on the Senate floor last year.
To which McConnell replied, “I think I have an obligation to support the nominee of my party.”
This appears to be the position of most Republicans, even those uncomfortable with Trump’s words and actions before, during and after the Jan. 6 riot.
But Swan brought up Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming as a person who held a similar view of Trump’s culpability, but decided Jan. 6 was her breaking point where she could not only no longer support Trump’s political ambitions.
At this point, McConnell flashed annoyance: “Do you want to spend more time on this as well?...Well, maybe you ought to be talking to Liz Cheney.”
Swan tried one more attempt with an appeal at understanding where McConnell would draw a line with Trump. If not Jan. 6, then what?
“I think many things I’m sure people don’t understand,” McConnell replied.
In Washington interviews, every nuance is parsed, every word is dissected, every pause examined. McConnell interviews aren’t particularly infrequent, but they rarely make genuine news because of his self-imposed discipline and refusal to pontificate.
To insiders, this particular exchange showed McConnell in his truest cynical form, unable to express any circumstance that would give him pause in supporting his party’s presidential candidate.
What’s more was McConnell’s disclosure that he, as possibly the most significant Republican figure of the last two decades, holds little impact over his party’s standard bearer.
“I don’t get to pick the Republican nominee for president, they’re elected by the voters all over the country,” he said.
“He’s saying that he has no agency,” Cohen noted. “His moral concerns play no role in his political decision making.”
But McConnell made clear he loses little sleep about his unpopularity in Washington and in most of the rest of America. He answers to only two constituencies: Kentuckians, who have easily re-elected him for 37 years of service and his GOP caucus, which has crowned him party leader for 15 years.
What people outside those two groups think about his answers matter little to him. What raises eyebrows and tweets in Washington doesn’t usually land the same way in Lexington.
Until there’s a true political price for his tolerance of Trump, even some of McConnell’s critics don’t think he’ll care what you think.
“He doesn’t,” said Cohen. “He’s bulletproof.”
This story was originally published April 8, 2022 at 2:10 PM with the headline "‘Party before all else.’ What McConnell revealed in interview about his moral red line."
