After Days of Attacks, Trump Suggests McConnell Should Step Down

The Republican party is having a meltdown.

Bill Clark/ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

President Donald Trump ramped up his attacks on Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Thursday, suggesting the Senate Majority Leader should step down if Republicans continue failing to pass measures at the top of the party’s legislative agenda. 

“If he doesn’t get repeal and replace done and if he doesn’t get taxes done, meaning cuts and reform, and if he doesn’t get a very easy one to get done, infrastructure, if he doesn’t get them done, then you can ask me that question,” Trump told reporters from his Bedminster golf course in New Jersey.

The president has been feuding with McConnell this week, after the Senate’s top Republican on Monday expressed frustration at Trump’s relative inexperience in Washington, along with his “excessive expectations” for passing legislation in such a short period of time.

“Our new president has, of course, not been in this line of work before, and I think had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process,” McConnell said at a Rotary Club meeting in his home state of Kentucky.

McConnell also complained that it was “extremely irritating” that Congress was being blamed for failing to repeal the Affordable Care Act. 

In response, Trump has taken to Twitter the past several days to blast McConnell. 

This post has been edited throughout.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate