‘Call 911’: Trump’s ‘death wish’ post condemned by one McConnell ally. Others are silent.
Donald Trump’s Friday night post on Truth Social – proclaiming that Sen. Mitch McConnell has a “death wish” – was widely seen as a dangerous rhetorical escalation, especially when members of Congress are confronting a higher number of personal threats during a particularly tempestuous period of political acrimony.
The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board opined that it was easy to imagine “some fanatic taking Mr. Trump seriously and literally and attempting to kill Mr. McConnell.”
Days removed from Trump’s Friday night post, most Republicans have chosen to ignore it, seeing little reason to insert themselves in the most bitter ongoing conflict inside their party.
Perhaps they’re just taking cues from McConnell himself. His spokesperson said the Kentuckian’s office had “nothing from our end” to say about it, continuing to adhere to the McConnell mantra of avoiding a public brawl with Trump at all costs.
Sen. Rand Paul, up for re-election in a month, and Rep. Andy Barr of Lexington, also have said nothing. Neither immediately responded to an inquiry through their spokespeople on Monday.
With just 36 days until a close midterm election, McConnell even has less incentive to stoke a fight that could rupture the GOP unity necessary to reclaim the Senate chamber.
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, this cycle’s campaign chief, declined to directly denounce Trump’s comments when asked about them on a Sunday morning talk show. Instead, he attempted to interpret them as a policy critique.
“What I believe what President Trump was talking about is the fact that we can’t keep spending money,” Scott said on CBS’ Face the Nation. “We’re going to hurt our poorest families the most with this reckless Democrat spending and we’ve got to stop it. We can’t cave into their spending.”
Trump’s “death wish” post followed his slamming McConnell for blessing a bipartisan bill to continue to fund the government.
Scott continued to dodge the question on CNN Sunday. “I can never talk about — respond to why anybody else says what they say,” he said.
But on the same network, there was one prominent McConnell ally who had had enough.
Scott Jennings, a Princeton, Ky., native who used to work for McConnell, declared that every Republican ought to be able to denounce Trump’s remarks, which included Trump insulting McConnell’s Taiwanese-born wife, Elaine Chao, as “China’s loving wife, Coco Chow.”
“I mean, if you read that whole thing out loud, if you were on the street, and you heard someone muttering that on a street corner, you wouldn’t say, ‘Hmm, let’s hand this person the presidency or the Republican nomination for president,’” Jennings said. “You would say, ‘Call 911.’ Because it sounds like an unhinged, deranged person has gotten loose and is out on the street and may be a danger to themselves and others.”
Jennings stood alone.
Trump’s ongoing feud with Mitch McConnell stems from an errant belief that McConnell is the reason for him not being in the White House today.
In the nearly 21 months since the former president’s term ended, he’s called the GOP leader a piece of excrement, a “dumb son of a bitch” and has continually championed for his replacement.
But Trump’s fiercest allies have always found a way to defend the bombast, including in this instance.
“It’s clear as day that President Trump’s statement didn’t call for violence against Mitch McConnell,” tweeted Alex Brusewitz, a Florida-based strategist. “He stated that McConnell has a political death wish, which is true.”
Nowhere in Trump’s missive does the word “political” appear.
This story was originally published October 3, 2022 at 11:58 AM with the headline "‘Call 911’: Trump’s ‘death wish’ post condemned by one McConnell ally. Others are silent.."
