Mitch McConnell just kicked Donald Trump in the teeth
If you want to know what Mitch McConnell will ultimately do about Donald Trump’s impeachment, it’s almost painfully simple to understand: Mitch McConnell will end up doing whatever Mitch McConnell thinks is best for Mitch McConnell. Whether that ends up consisting of saving Trump, or ousting Trump, or throwing Trump into an active volcano, McConnell is going to side with his own personal best interests. It’s just who he is.
That’s why it’s newsworthy that Mitch McConnell went to the extreme length this afternoon of publishing an op-ed in the Washington Post, titled “Withdrawing from Syria is a grave mistake.” McConnell doesn’t mention Trump by name, but he goes on and on about how Trump’s Syria pullout shouldn’t have happened, and why it’s already too late to undo the damage. So what’s Mitch doing here?
As is always the case, McConnell is doing what he thinks is best for himself. He’s spelling out to the American public that the Syria disaster isn’t his fault. He’s telling the public to blame Trump for it. He’s also giving Republican Senators the green light to hit Trump as hard as they want over it. If it ends up driving Trump’s approval rating even lower, and ends up driving impeachment poll numbers even higher, then so be it.
Mitch McConnell ultimately doesn’t care whether Donald Trump sinks or swims, so long as McConnell survives the whole thing unscathed. McConnell knows that this op-ed will only serve to increase the odds that Trump will have to be ousted. He doesn’t care. He only cares about how this plays out for himself. Trump should be worried about what’s transpiring here, because if McConnell ultimately decides that he’s personally better off without Trump, he’ll throw Trump under the bus in a heartbeat.
