Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell at odds as Trump tears the GOP apart: columnist
According to longtime political observer Margaret Carlson, it is questionable if Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (D-CA) are on speaking terms as former president Donald Trump ramps up his war on the Kentucky Republican.
As Carlson notes, McConnell has been working with the Democrats in the Senate to raise the debt ceiling, which has infuriated Trump, while McCarthy has been doing the former president's bidding by disrupting government operations at every turn.
According to the columnist, McConnell is focused on moving the Republican Party forward, while McCarthy's entire focus is doing whatever will please Trump.
"From his permanent position on Donald Trump’s lap, Kevin McCarthy remained strenuously opposed to lifting the debt ceiling and in favor of a government shutdown and reminded McConnell of his prior vow to never, ever help those truffle-eating, big-spending Democrats. Trump, who accumulated the largest deficit in history when he was president, piled on from Mar-a-Lago, slamming McConnell for giving up the 'debt ceiling card' for 'nothing.' Nothing? We don’t know exactly what would happen to the party perceived to run out on the check for years of four-star meals, but McConnell is not dumb enough to find out," Carlson wrote.
Adding that it is hard to know how much the two talk to each other, Carlson said that Trump and his hatred of McConnell -- who refused to back his claims that the election was stolen from him -- is causing a divide that might not be able to be bridged.
Writing, "McCarthy is such a captive of Trump, on strict orders from Mar-a-Lago to oppose anything the illegitimate president is for, that everyone knows he’s not his own man, forever the substitute teacher with his charges running wild," Carlson added, "Trump’s fury with the Old Crow [McConnell] keeps rising yet McConnell stands his ground as he sees fit. McCarthy quivers in his boots if Trump wrinkles his brow, even as the former president primaries his incumbents anyway. He’s deluded if he thinks Trump will support him for Speaker, unless it turns out to be in his interest, no matter how much he indulges the antics of Trump’s MAGA squad in his caucus."
"It’s no mystery why we’re no longer ranked among the top 30 democracies in the world. We’re being led by officials who fear that a defeated, impaired, and ruthless man might say something nasty about them," Carlson suggested. "That’s why McConnell speaking to the opposition and 'caving' on the debt ceiling, as Trump saw it, is significant. Unlike McCarthy, he’s not so afraid anymore."
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