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““We crushed the sons of bitches. And that’s what we’re going to do in the primary in ’22.” ”
That colorful phrase was reportedly uttered former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when he said that the GOP should take down any far-right candidates running in the 2022 midterms similar to how they trounced such extremists in 2014.
That’s according to the upcoming book “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future” by New York Times journalists Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin. The Washington Post got an advance copy of the tome, which claims McConnell took shots at outgoing President Donald Trump, and was “exhilarated” by the prospect of the Jan. 6 riot ruining Trump’s reputation.
“I feel exhilarated by the fact that this fellow finally, totally discredited himself,” McConnell said to Martin on Jan. 7, 2021, the day after the insurrection at the Capitol complex.
Trump “was pretty thoroughly discredited by this,” McConnell continued before adding that this, “couldn’t have happened at a better time.” McConnell was likely referencing the fact that Trump had just lost the presidential election to Democratic candidate Joe Biden a month earlier, and could be forcing the GOP to move on from him as a party leader at that time.
The Republican Senator from Kentucky then reportedly discussed electoral plans for the upcoming mid-term elections.
“We crushed the sons of bitches,” McConnell reportedly said, referencing the 2014 midterms when the Republican Party took back the Senate majority while subduing far-right primary candidates. “And that’s what we’re going to do in the primary in ’22.”
But that differs from what McConnell has been saying publicly since the 2020 presidential election. For example, McConnell has promised to support whomever the Republican nominee for president would be in 2024, including Trump.
Conversely, Trump has been far from complimentary about the current Senate Minority leader, either. Trump has attacked McConnell repeatedly since leaving the White House, at one point calling him a “a dour, sullen and unsmiling political hack” for failing to support him vigorously enough.
A spokesperson for McConnell was not immediately available for comment on this story.
