South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham threatened on Wednesday to oppose Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell’s re-election to leadership if the GOP minority leader can’t work with former President Donald Trump.
“I like Sen. McConnell. He worked well with President Trump to get a bunch of judges including three Supreme Court justices on the bench. They got the tax cuts passed working together,” Graham said on Fox News. “But here’s the question: Can Sen. McConnell effectively work with the leader of the Republican Party Donald Trump? I’m not going to vote for anybody that can’t have a working relationship with President Trump.”
Graham’s comments follow months of McConnell endorsing a purge of the former president and his supporters by legitimizing the Democrats’ weaponized House Select Committee on Jan. 6.
“It was a horrendous event,” McConnell said in December, speaking of the riot in early January. “I think what they are seeking to find out is something the public needs to know.”
The comment came as the partisan probe, which is void of Republican appointments at Speaker Pelosi’s direction, escalated its persecution of private individuals with no connection to the Capitol turmoil. At the time of the Republican Senate leader’s statement, House Democrats had just voted to hold former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in contempt because he refused to forfeit executive privilege in testimony before the select committee. Pelosi’s deputies on the committee have also sought the telecom records of private individuals without their consent or even a notice.
In January last year, McConnell was reportedly “pleased” with the Democrats’ snap impeachment of the outgoing president, according to The New York Times, and almost voted in favor of it.
Recent polls suggest that McConnell, who is emblematic of the past GOP, is among the least popular politicians in America. According to an aggregate of surveys by RealClearPolitics, McConnell suffers a net-negative approval rating of nearly 35 points (24 percent favorable to 58.6 percent unfavorable), a far greater spread than Pelosi, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
