Washington (AP) Senator Mitch McConnell is no longer responsible, the long-time GOP leader rejects President Donald Trump’s top-class cabinet candidate among the Republicans and gave his no voices.
When it came to Pete Hegseth, now the Minister of Defense, who was exposed to allegations of excessive drinking and aggressive behavior towards women, McConnell said that the fighter veteran had “failed so far to prove” that he was ready for the job.
The “wish to be a change agent is not enough,” said McConnell.
On Tulsi Gabard, who was sworn in this week as director of the national secret services, he said that she had shown “a history of alarming judgment factors”, in particular her views of Russia, China and the security violation of the former government contractor Edward Snowden.
And as the Republicans of the Senate confirmed that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. headed the Ministry of Health and Human Services, McConnell, a survivor of Childhood Polio, who used a wheelchair during the vote.
“A recording of human trafficking with dangerous conspiracy theories and eroding trust in public health institutions does not entitle to manage these important efforts,” said Kentucky’s senator.
This is McConnell, three weeks in the Trump administration and its modern role as no longer the GOP leader of the Senate, but one of 100 senators. It tests the strength, but also the limits of its influence on the institution, where it has been a monumental presence for almost 40 years.
McConnell is far from an anti-Trump Republican and hardly the face of the GOP opposition against the White House. He was right to confirm Trump’s other candidates and said he expected to support Trump’s agenda.
But his opposition to the trio of Trump’s most controversial candidates stands out. Together, McConnell’s votes against Hegseth, Gabbard and RFK Jr. And it shows the changes in his power when only a few other Republicans joined him and often left him with Democrats and Trump’s decisions could not stop.
“McConnell’s voices about the Trump candidates at least partially reflect the fact that he is more free to choose in accordance with personal preferences than he was responsible for serving as a leader and voice for the Republicans of the Senate,” said Frances Lee Lee, Professor of Politics and Public Affairs in Princeton.
Only two other Republicans, the independent Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska and Senator Susan Collins from Maine, also voted against Hegseth.
“Now that he is no longer in the lead, Senator McConnell enjoys more freedom to simply exercise his individual judgment and personal discretion,” said Lee.
Trump excluded the latest votes and called McConnell “Bitter” and “not mentally” during a long joke in the Oval Office on Thursday after Kennedy had been sworn in.
“I’m sorry,” said the Republican President.
“He is now voting against almost everything. He is a very bitter guy, ”said Trump about McConnell, who was a decisive partner than the majority leader of the Senate during Trump’s first term.
Together, Trump and McConnell passed joint priorities, especially the 2017 GOP tax laws, but the two also collided – the president called the Senator “Old Crow”, which McConnell converted into a badge of honor – and had a very public failure after the 2020 elections that lost Trump against Democrat Joe Biden. McConnell described Trump as “morally responsible” for January 6, 2021, the uprising due to a lot of his supporters in the Capitol, but ultimately supported Trump’s re -election offer.
Trump did not appear on Thursday to understand that McConnell Polio had as a child, a factor when he weighed Kennedy’s nomination.
“He lost his power,” said Trump. “It’s one of these things.”
When he announced that he had resigned as a GOP leader, said McConnell that he would end his Senate period, which expired after the 2026 elections. It is unclear whether he will run again.
Of course, McConnell is anything but marginalized. He orders first -class positions as chairman of the influential rules of rules and as chairman of the sub -committee of the appropriation committee in defense, where he signaled that he transfers the nation’s military assets and insures the US leadership on the global stage.
“I assume that the most of what is trying to achieve this administration supports,” said McConnell in a recent interview about CBS ‘”60 minutes”.
The senator still looks in policies persistent effects, especially in his left leg. McConnell recently fell twice on the stages of the Senate Chamber, where he quickly caught and stood by two GOP colleagues, and a brief time later in the private GOP lunchroom. Sometimes he uses a wheelchair like this week.
Other senators observe and weigh the turn of the events.
“He seems to be liberated and I think he chooses his conscience,” said the Democrat of Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal.
Blumenthal said, while other Republicans are “in fear in a state of trembling” because of the primary threats if they do not match Trump’s agenda, especially billionaire Trump Adjuter Elon Musk’s political group, does not belong to McConnell.
“Whatever his motivation may be, he certainly shows that courage and conscience are still important,” he said.
The modern Senator Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, said: “The large one of being a senator is that you can decide what is crucial for you, what your priorities are, and he should represent the people who chose him .. “
McConnell’s critics also noticed. Nate Morris, a businessman in Kentucky, said this week he was mentioning a Senate in 2026.
“I think President Trump needs less of these weak career politicians who run for an office and more outside of business people who will fight for his first agenda in America,” Morris posted this week on social media.
McConnell’s opposition to Hegseth, McConnell, said McConnell has turned President Trump back. “
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Matt Brown and Darlene Superville in Washington and Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Kentucky, contributed to this story.
