Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) seems to have done another about-face in regards to his views on former President Donald Trump.
Shortly after a large majority of Senate Republicans voted to acquit Trump on the charge of inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S Capitol, McConnell took to the Senate floor to hold the former president "practically and morally responsible" for the riot.
"The people who stormed this building believed that they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president," McConnell claimed. "And having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole, which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth."
Well, that was two weeks ago. McConnell seems to have cut out the MSNBC since then and it's made a world of difference.
McConnell told Fox News Channel's Bret Baier on "Special Report" Thursday night that "what happened in the past is not something relevant now" and that it's time for Republicans to move forward.
The Fox News host asked the Senate leader about a blistering statement Trump issued in response to McConnell's scathing post-impeachment speech. Trump called the Kentucky senator a "business as usual" politician who lacked "insight, wisdom, skill, and personality." Trump also warned that the "Republican Party can never again be respected or strong with political leaders like Senator Mitch McConnell at its helm."
"We're looking forward," McConnell responded to Baier.
Baier then asked McConnell whether he'd back the former president if he decided to run for a second term and secured the party's nomination.
"The nominee of the party? Absolutely," said McConnell.
Perhaps McConnell's change of heart has something to do with GOP voters.
A recent poll found nearly half of Republican voters are willing to leave the GOP if Trump were to create a third party. Just 27 percent said they would stick with the GOP, and the rest were undecided. And GOP voters aren't forgetting the politicians who jumped on the impeachment bandwagon either. Eight in 10 Republicans said they are less likely now to vote for a Republican lawmaker who backed impeachment.
Keep off the MSNBC, McConnell.
