McConnell slammed Trump as ‘fading brand’ and ‘retired’, book claims

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said Donald Trump is “a fading brand”, according to a new book by journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

Peril, co-authored by The Washington Post duo, is a damming account of the Trump administration and quotes Mr McConnell saying “there is a clear trend moving,” in the Republican Party, as “sucking up to Donald Trump is not a strategy that works.” Mr McConnell said the former president is “retired” or “OTTB as they say in Kentucky – off-the-track Thoroughbred.”

Mr McConnell has previously stated that he wants to get as far away from Trump’s Republicanism in the lead up to 2022 midterm elections, and the book claims that if the former president endorsed a candidate that he believed would not win the pair could come to “loggerheads”.

“The only place I can see Trump and me actually at loggerheads would be if he gets behind some clown who clearly can’t win,” Mr McConnell is quoted as saying in Peril. “To have a chance of getting the Senate back, you have to have the most electable candidates possible.”

Mr Trump lashed out at Mr McConnell in August, “I have quietly said for years that Mitch McConnell is the most overrated man in politics – now I don’t have to be quiet anymore,” he said of the Senate minority leader, who supported the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package. “He is working so hard to give Biden a victory, now they’ll go for the big one, including the biggest tax increases in the history of our country,” continued Trump.

US Representative for Wyoming Liz Cheney has outspokenly agreed with Mitch McConnell’s views that the GOP must go in another direction, but plenty of prominent GOP lawmakers don’t agree.

United States Senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham has previously said the party can’t “grow” if Donald Trump is not part of the party. “Can we move forward without President Trump? The answer is ‘no’,” he said on Fox News. The Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, is another who backs Mr Trump’s involvement in the party.

Despite his stance on the future of the GOP, Mr McConnell did vote against impeaching Trump in his second trial following the 6 January riots at the US Capitol.

Peril was released on 21 September and follows, as the book blurb claims, “one of the most dangerous periods in American history” during which “at the highest level of the US military, secret action was taken to prevent Mr Trump from possibly starting a war”.