McConnell is a 'complicit little coward’: Former senator unloads on Senate Majority Leader for dragging out shutdown

Retired California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer on Friday took a swipe at Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, telling MSNBC that the Kentucky Republican was "a complicit little coward" who was just as responsible for the shutdown as President Donald Trump.

"The two people who are responsible? Donald Trump, because he could not successfully come through with his campaign promise that Mexico would pay for the wall," Boxer said. "He agreed to put that aside, Rush Limbaugh told him no, so he got into this jam." She noted that Trump "said he would be delighted" to take the blame for the shutdown.

"Then you have Mitch McConnell. I served him for many years, he's tough and strong," she said. "All of sudden he's this little complicit coward and saying 'I'm not doing anything until the president tells me what he wants?'" She added that McConnell's refusal to move a continuing resolution was an unconstitutional abdication of the Senate's authority and slammed both men for trying to divert the public's attention.

"All these diversions of turning this into a 'Pelosi-Trump battle', that's a diversion," she said. "Turning it into 'let's look at North Korea', another meeting with another tyrant, so what? Open up the government. Open it up."

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