Trump lashes out against ‘political hack’ McConnell

Just days after he was acquitted by the U.S. Senate but admonished by its Republican leader for his role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol, former President Donald Trump lashed out Tuesday against his former ally Senator Mitch McConnell.

In a statement from his office, Trump said: "Mitch is a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack, and if Republican Senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again."

The statement was one of his first issued since leaving office and since he was banned from Twitter permanently.

It signals a growing rift between the two most important voices in the Republican Party.

"There is no question - none - that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it."

While seven Republicans voted with Democrats to convict the former president in the Senate trial, not McConnell, who said his vote hinged on a technicality - his belief that a former president could not be impeached.

But, then, from the floor of the Senate, McConnell blasted the former president and said he is to blame for the mayhem.

"Unless the statute of limitations is run, still liable for everything he did while he was in office. Didn't get away with anything. Yet. Yet."

Trump and McConnell parted ways in the weeks after the election, with Trump irked that McConnell recognized Joe Biden as the winner.

While many Republicans in office still cling to the former president and his strong base of support, others like McConnell would like to move on -- pointing out that Republicans lost the House, Senate and the White House under Trump's watch, making him the first president since Herbert Hoover in 1932 during the Great Depression to do so in a single term.