WASHINGTON — A new biography of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., chronicles the life of the Kentucky senator and details the depth of his disdain for former President Donald Trump.
What You Need To Know
- "The Price of Power" chronicles the life of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
- It also details his disdain for former President Donald Trump
- The biography draws on more than 50 hours of interviews with McConnell, as well as interviews with more than 100 people who know him
- Among those interviewed were President Joe Biden and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito
“The Price of Power,” by Associated Press Deputy Washington Bureau Chief Michael Tackett, draws on more than 50 hours of interviews with McConnell, as well as interviews with more than 100 people who know him.
“People look at him as kind of a monochromatic figure, and I think I was most surprised by seeing how many dimensions there were,” Tackett said.
The biography, which was released this week, reveals in stunning detail just what McConnell thinks of Trump.
According to “The Price of Power,” McConnell has referred to the former president as “stupid,” a “despicable human being” and a “sleazeball," adding he believes Trump committed impeachable and indictable offenses.
After the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Tackett described how McConnell sobbed to his staff, saying, “You are my family, and I hate the fact that you had to go through this.”
Still, McConnell would vote to acquit the former president in his second impeachment trial.
“He gambled on his belief that Trump would fade from the political stage in the wake of the insurrection," Tackett wrote. "Instead, Trump reemerged every bit as strong among core supporters. It was likely the worst political miscalculation of McConnell’s career.”
Despite his open contempt for Trump, McConnell endorsed him for president earlier this year.
“That's a very difficult thing to square,” Tackett said. “The way he talks about it is he says you can't be the leader of the party in the Senate in a presidential election year if you don't support the nominee of the party. I mean, I think what really the case here is, is that the inside story of the inside game of politics is usually not very neat and clean.”
The senator has been roundly criticized for blocking the confirmation of President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court in 2016, allowing Trump to fill the seat the following year.
McConnell argued that confirmation would be inappropriate with an election looming, but he then quickly pushed through Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the high court just ahead of the 2020 election.
McConnell is quoted in the book saying, “I think the whole effort with regard to the courts is the single most consequential thing I’ve been involved in in my time in public life, with the longest impact, and I think it’s the hallmark of my period.”
The biography also describes McConnell’s role in shaping the Republican Party in Kentucky.
“He paid slavish attention to state legislative races and county races, always with an eye for talent to build a Republican bench,” Tackett wrote.
According to the book, McConnell’s staff estimates he has delivered $60 billion in federal aid to the commonwealth.
“He is a fierce competitor,” Tackett said, when asked about what motivates McConnell. “He is a survivor, and he has a real philosophy."
"Some people think it's only power; I think it's deeper than that. I think he has a conviction about the role of government. He has a conviction about what government does and doesn't do in an individual's life, what government does and doesn't do about American business, so it's a complex portrait.”
Tackett had access to McConnell’s oral history project, which began in 1995. Among the people he interviewed for the biography were President Joe Biden and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
Tackett said McConnell declined to tell him who he was voting for this year, even though he endorsed Trump publicly.