President Joe Biden is losing one of his last levers of support over the Republican Party — and he’s not happy about it.
On Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who represents the old guard of the GOP — literally and figuratively — announced he was stepping aside as party leader in November.
“One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter,” McConnell said in prepared remarks delivered before the upper chamber, The Associated Press reported. “So I stand before you today … to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.”
“As I have been thinking about when I would deliver some news to the Senate, I always imagined a moment when I had total clarity and peace about the sunset of my work,” the 82-year-old senator added. “A moment when I am certain I have helped preserve the ideals I so strongly believe. It arrived today.”
What “ideals” these were are anyone’s guess, although it’s worth noting it came one day after McConnell reportedly joined with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a closed-door meeting to pressure GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson to reach some kind of spending deal in the House of Representatives. Draw your own conclusions.
Whatever the case may be, the 81-year-old president wasn’t pleased to hear that McConnell was leaving his position.
“I’m sorry to hear McConnell stepped down,” Biden said when asked about it Wednesday.
He then outlined why conservatives shouldn’t be sorry.
“I’ve trusted him, and we have a great relationship,” the president said. “We fight like hell. But he has never, never, never misrepresented anything. I’m sorry to hear he’s stepping down.”
President Biden says he’s “sorry to hear” Mitch McConnell is stepping down from Senate leadership:
“I trusted him, we had a great relationship, we fought like hell. But he never, never, never misrepresented anything. I’m sorry to hear he’s stepping down.” pic.twitter.com/U4a1RaQ94v
— The Recount (@therecount) February 28, 2024
Perhaps the president is sorry that McConnell isn’t leaving his Senate seat as well as his position as party leader, as this would mean that Kentucky’s Democratic governor could appoint a replacement — although, as NBC News noted, Kentucky law directs governors to appoint a successor from the senator’s own party based on a list of choices, so there is that.
But perhaps Biden can’t remember when McConnell “misrepresented anything” because 1) he’s not a Republican, 2) his memory is shot or 3) both.
Never mind that a string of freezing episodes in 2023 was attributed to a concussion the leader suffered after a fall last March. The lack of medical answers regarding McConnell’s condition — which, considering the fact he’s older than both Biden and former President Donald Trump — could be considered a lack of proper representation about the full nature of his health.
New letter from Capitol attending physician Monahan to McConnell:
“There is no evidence that you have a seizure disorder or that you experienced a stroke, TIA or movement disorder such as Parkinson’s disease.” pic.twitter.com/DTnRJSUqh2
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) September 5, 2023
However, in terms of McConnell having “never, never, never misrepresented anything,” perhaps Biden ought to listen to GOP Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson describing, this month, how the minority leader absolutely misrepresented his strategy on getting border security funding in negotiations with the president and the Democrats.
When he entered negotiations for the foreign aid/border security bill that ended up being dead on arrival in the House, “McConnell said his top priority was funding for Ukraine,” Johnson said.
Are you happy McConnell is stepping down?
“But public opinion and the very strong political rhetoric that we ought to secure our own border before we spend $60 billion to secure Ukraine’s was effective. And so McConnell finally switched and said, ‘OK, we’ve got to let Democrats know that we are serious. We are going to defeat closure on this bill, and we are going to demand that border security is going to be attached to funding for Ukraine,’” the senator continued.
“Then secret negotiations occurred on an issue the public supports Republicans on, and we end up with this monstrosity of a bill. It is an immigration bill. It’s not a border security bill. But during that time frame, we repeatedly talked about making Ukraine funding contingent on border metrics,” he said.
Then, Johnson said, “using his own authority without telling the conference even though he knew the conference supported tying border security or Ukraine funding to actually securing the border, McConnell just took that off the table.”
“And that moment of leverage we had where we could use Biden’s desire for Ukraine funding to actually force him to use his executive authority to secure the border has been lost, and that is why so many of us are speaking out against McConnell,” the senator said. “It was such a breach of his leadership position and such a, just a horrible thing to do to Americans who want a secure border.”
WATCH: Sen. Ron Johnson exposes how Mitch McConnell betrayed Republicans on border security. pic.twitter.com/ijWTzGauff
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) February 13, 2024
So maybe you’re not surprised that Joe Biden thinks Mitch McConnell “never, never, never misrepresented anything” — because McConnell hasn’t to him. However, in terms of “fight[ing] like hell” with him, now that’s some grade-A misrepresentation.
If he wants to find out what “fight[ing] like hell” looks like, though, my guess is that he’ll find out once McConnell is gone.
