Mitch McConnell Considers Trump ‘Despicable,’ ‘Stupid,’ ‘Ill-Tempered,’ According To New Book

Topline

An upcoming biography of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell reveals he considers Donald Trump a “narcissist” and “stupid,” according to excerpts reported by The Associated Press—shedding more light on the two men’s uneasy alliance, though McConnell endorsed Trump for president this year.

Key Facts

The details come from “The Price of Power,” written by Michael Tackett, the AP’s deputy Washington bureau chief, to be published Oct. 29.

Several weeks before the Capitol was attacked on Jan. 6, 2021, McConnell “warned” Republicans against challenging the election results and supported the certification of Biden’s Electoral College win, but he said behind closed doors that both Democrats and Republicans were “counting the days” of Trump’s presidency, according to the AP.

McConnell, 82, also said the Republicans “lost” their House majority in 2018 because of Trump, saying he ”has every characteristic you would not want a president to have” and calling him “not very smart,” Tackett writes.

According to the book, McConnell also said Trump was a “despicable human being” after he stalled a coronavirus relief package in the House in 2020, which McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., considered a “prized bipartisan compromise,” according to the AP’s reporting on the aid package in 2020.

-McConnell also reportedly said behind closed doors that Trump’s presidential loss showed the U.S. “had enough” of routine lies and “fired him,” with McConnell calling Trump a narcissist struggling to accept his failure, “stupid,” “ill-tempered” and without the ability to make choices in his “best interest.”

Crucial Quote

“Whatever I may have said about President Trump pales in comparison to what JD Vance, Lindsey Graham, and others have said about him, but we are all on the same team now,” McConnell said in an emailed statement to Forbes.

Key Background

Throughout his political career, Trump has often insulted McConnell and feuded with him, and McConnell once blamed Trump for the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. However, the two have also worked together on legislation, such as a billion-dollar tax bill in 2017, and McConnell endorsed Trump’s presidential campaign in March. Tackett’s book describes the endorsement as the “price paid” for McConnell to retain power, according to the AP’s story on the biography. In 2021, McConnell also sided with seven other Republicans to acquit Trump from his impeachment following the Capitol riot. McConnell has said he won’t forfeit his Senate seat but plans to give up his position as the Senate’s Republican leader by 2025, according to a February report by the AP.

Tangent

McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, served as Trump’s transportation secretary but decided to leave the Trump administration the day after the Capitol riot, calling it “traumatic” and “entirely avoidable” in a statement. Throughout 2022, tension grew between McConnell, Chao and Trump as he denigrated Chao—who was born in Taiwan—with racist nicknames, calling her “Coco Chow” and “China-loving.” Trump eventually elicited a rare public statement from Chao in 2023, after he repeated the nickname and baselessly suggested she was connected to the ostensible discovery of classified documents in a Biden-linked office in Washington’s Chinatown neighborhood. Chao’s statement said Trump’s remarks say “more about him than it will ever say about Asian Americans,” according to the Washington Post. McConnell reportedly responded to Trump’s attacks in Tackett’s book, saying in 2022 he couldn’t “think of anybody I’d rather be criticized by than this sleazeball.”