Less than a month after excoriating former US president Donald Trump in a blistering floor speech, US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday said that he would “absolutely” support Trump again if he secured the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
McConnell told Fox News that there was still “a lot to happen between now” and the next presidential election.
“I’ve got at least four members that I think are planning on running for president, plus governors and others,” McConnell said. “There’s no incumbent. Should be a wide-open race.”
Photo: AFP
When asked if he would support Trump again were he to win the nomination, McConnell said: “The nominee of the party? Absolutely.”
McConnell’s comments precede an annual gathering that this year is expected to showcase Trump’s grip on the Republican Party’s base.
Trump, along with most other leading 2024 presidential prospects, is set to address the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, which opened yesterday and finishes tomorrow.
Shortly after voting to acquit Trump at his second impeachment trial, McConnell delivered a scalding denunciation of him from the Senate floor, calling him “morally responsible” for the Jan. 6 storming of the US Capitol in Washington.
Trump responded by calling McConnell a “dour, sullen and unsmiling political hack.”
While Trump was in office, they secured key Senate victories, such as 2017 tax cuts, and confirmations of three US Supreme Court justices and more than 200 other federal judges.
The relationship between the two soured after Trump said that the presidential election on Nov. 3 last year was “rigged.”
It deteriorated further last month, after Republicans lost Senate control with two Georgia runoff defeats followed by the attack on the Capitol.
On the day of the riot, McConnell railed against “thugs, mobs or threats,” and described the attack as “this failed insurrection.”
Still, McConnell’s comments on Thursday might prove prescient.
US Senator Mitt Romney, a longtime Trump opponent, predicted that the former president would win the nomination if he ran again.
“I don’t know if he’ll run in 2024 or not, but if he does, I’m pretty sure he will win the nomination,” Romney said during an online forum hosted by the New York Times.
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