Donald Trump Was Reportedly Furious With Mitch McConnell After The 2020 Election

They were, by many accounts, an odd political partnership which was built on mutual need. At one point in 2019, then-President Donald Trump had even said of then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that "The nation owes an immense debt of gratitude to a man whose leadership has been instrumental to our success." And while their relationship went through its ups and downs, no one was prepared for the spectacular crash that came after the November 2020 election (via The New York Times) when McConnell broke with Trump.

Nearly a month would pass before Mitch McConnell sent his best wishes to Joe Biden on his victory, sending them on December 15. Even then, that gap wasn't good enough for Donald Trump, who, according to journalists and authors Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in their book "Peril", sent foul language McConnell's way for acknowledging Biden's win. But even as Trump reportedly insulted the Senate Majority Leader as being disloyal and weak, McConnell was quoted as saying, "You lost the election, the Electoral College has spoken" (via Insider). 

Since the 2020 election, we've heard Donald Trump say that Mitch McConnell "blew it for the country" and that he regretted backing McConnell's campaign in Kentucky. Trump has also repeatedly pushed for McConnell to be removed as Senate minority leader (via Courier Journal).

But while Trump might have thought McConnell to be disloyal, and while McConnell put the "moral responsibility" of the January 6 insurrection on the shoulders of the former president, McConnell still refused to call back the Senate when it recessed from January 14-20 to hear an impeachment motion while Trump was still in office. The then-Senate majority leader also voted to acquit Trump during his second impeachment hearing in February, on the grounds that the impeachment article "limits impeachment and conviction to current officers" (via The Wall Street Journal). 

McConnell isn't the first senior member of the GOP to draw Trump's ire. Woodward and Costa's book also talks about a confrontation between Trump and former House Speaker Paul Ryan, when the latter sought to comment on the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, by tweeting that "white supremacy is repulsive" (via Associated Press). The book "Peril" quotes Trump as telling Ryan, "These people love me. These are my people. I can't backstab the people who support me" (via Vanity Fair).