Mitch McConnell desperately wants Trump gone but is stuck ‘playing footsie’ with him: MSNBC analyst

If Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stumbled upon a magic lamp with a genie inside, he would wish for former president Donald Trump to "just go away," according to MSNBC analyst Tim Miller.

"Mitch McConnell understands that what Donald Trump precipitated on Jan. 6 was horrible," Miller said Friday night, reacting to the Senate GOP leader's statements this week signaling support for a House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection, which he previously opposed.

Miller added that McConnell also understands that Trump is the reason he's no longer the Senate majority leader.

"Those two Georgia Senate seats were lost because of Donald Trump's actions between November and Jan. 5," Miller said. "In private, there's no love lost. The problem is, the thing that Mitch McConnell cares about the very most — being majority leader, being able to appoint those judges — requires him to play ball with Donald Trump."

Miller went on to say that if McConnell were to push Trump "overboard," MAGA voters would turn on him, and he'd end up "out of politics."

"He would turn into what (former House Speaker) Paul Ryan is, a board member at Fox," Miller said of McConnell. "He's stuck! If he wants to stay as leader, he has to continue to play this footsie with Donald Trump, while knowing on the inside that what Trump did was wrong, and while wishing he could just move on from Donald Trump."

"But he can't do it, so sometimes that desire slips out in interviews like this," Miller said, referring to McConnell's comment that the Jan. 6 committee's findings are “something the public needs to know.”

Watch below.

Tim Miller on Mitch McConnellwww.youtube.com