CATFIGHT

McConnell Blames ‘Diminished’ Trump for Republican Midterm Flop

The senate minority leader says Trump’s endorsed candidates lost Republicans the midterms in key swing states.

Mitch McConnell says former president Donald Trump’s political sway has “diminished” after a string of brutal Trump-endorsed losses in the 2022 midterms that tipped the senate even further in the Democrats’ favor. “We lost support that we needed among independents and moderate Republicans, primarily related to the view they had of us as a party—largely made by the former president—that we were sort of nasty and tended toward chaos,” McConnell told NBC News Wednesday. The senate minority leader’s offensive attack on Trump represents the continued ripple in the party as Trump gears up for a 2024 run, with loyalists to the former president digging their heels in as some Republicans try to cut the cord. Still, McConnell shrugged off the insinuation that the Dobbs ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade would have swung independent voters towards Democrats. “Our biggest problem was candidate quality,” he said.