McConnell facing Republican chaos in the Senate even if he remains majority leader: ex-GOP official

On MSNBC Saturday, Kurt Bardella, a former aide to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) explained the potential nightmare Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) faces in holding together his party over the next two years — even if he maintains control of the Senate when the Georgia runoffs conclude.

"We've seen a lot of conversations recently about Mitch McConnell trying to assert himself the way he did in 2009, the last time he had an opposition president come into office," said Bardella. "And really, in a lot of ways what's going on in the Republican Party reminds me much more of what former Speaker John Boehner and former Majority Leader Eric Cantor dealt with when the Tea Party came in. They didn't know how to deal with the base, they didn't know how to deal with these independent actors who were doing whatever they wanted, and they ended up losing their seats or walking away from the game altogether."

"When I see what's going on in the Senate particularly, people like Josh Hawley or Tom Cotton, and we have Rand Paul and Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio — I don't see a path for Mitch McConnell to keep control of his caucus going forward," said Bardella. "He is going to have the same challenges with all of these people jockeying to try to become the heir apparent to Trump, to become the nominee in 2024. Everyone looking out for their own political interests."

"This is such a different time than we had in 2009," Bardella added. "There is no Chris Dodd or Ted Kennedy or John Kerry or John McCain. The people who actually cared about the institution in the Senate. Those people are all gone now. And what's left behind — it began with the Tea Party, it's now morphed into the Trumpism that we're in right now, and there's no controlling it. It's a runaway train, and they're only going to be happy if they burn the entire place down."

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