The US Republican party is currently in very troubling moments as yesterday Ex-President Donald Trump lashed out at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday, signaling a growing feud between the two most senior Republicans.
In a statement yesterday Trump described McConnell in very crude words, he said, ‘Mitch is a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack, and if Republican Senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again,’
The attack comes just three days after McConnell excoriated Trump following the former president’s second impeachment trial, on a charge of inciting the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol.
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Trump and McConnell parted ways in the weeks after the Nov. 3 presidential election, with Trump irked that McConnell had recognized Democrat Joe Biden as the winner in mid-December.
They have not spoken since a former White House official said.
The loss of both the White House to Biden and control of the Senate – which Democrats picked up in a pair of upset Georgia election runoff victories last month – leaves Republicans on edge as they plot how to win back congressional control in 2022.
The gap between the two men widened when McConnell declared on the Senate floor after Trump’s acquittal by the chamber on Saturday that Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
McConnell nonetheless voted to acquit Trump, saying he believed the Constitution limited impeachment and conviction to current, not former officials.
The House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump on Jan. 13 for inciting insurrection, but McConnell declined to reconvene the Senate ahead of its scheduled Jan. 20 session for the impeachment trial.
Trump, who delivered a fiery speech to supporters just before the Capitol assault, denies any responsibility for the violence.
‘ELECTABILITY’
The two are trying to push the party in opposite directions – McConnell back toward the roots of a budget-focused, pro-trade party, while Trump, who is still backed by a large portion of the Republican voter base, advocates a more populist approach.
McConnell, who normally stays out of intra-party conflict, told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Monday that he would consider “trying to affect the outcome of the primaries” during the 2022 congressional campaign season.
He said that he welcomed Republicans of all stripes, but ‘what I care about is electability.’
Trump gave notice that he too would be involved in the Republican primaries. ‘Where necessary and appropriate, I will back primary rivals who espouse Making America Great Again and our policy of America First,’ he said in his statement on Tuesday.
Despite their current differences, McConnell played a major role during Trump’s administration in helping pass the president’s signature 2017 tax cut and in confirming three conservative justices for the U.S. Supreme Court.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK