Mitch McConnell reemerges from hiding and takes weird new approach that’s not good news for Donald Trump

| 10:55 pm EST January 14, 2019
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For as long as Donald Trump has been dragging out this government shutdown over his imaginary border wall, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been laying uncharacteristically low. Usually in these situations, McConnell is the first to get out there and spread lies aimed at promoting Trump’s agenda. This time it’s been notable that he’s been laying low and letting Trump sink or swim on his own.

Now Mitch McConnell is finally putting himself back in the spotlight. But he’s not doing it to try to prop up Donald Trump’s shutdown agenda, or even to push his own Republican Party’s agenda. Instead McConnell has decided to make a statement directly condemning Republican Congressman Steve King for the white supremacist remarks he made last week. Wait, what? Why?

To be clear, a corrupt sociopathic political operative like Mitch McConnell couldn’t care less about something like racism. Nor would he usually care about the internal problems of the Republican House, as he’s in charge of the Republican Senate. But for some reason McConnell has decided to make a point of giving Steve King a shove toward the door.

With new Republican Senator Mitt Romney now calling for Steve King’s resignation, it could be that Mitch McConnell simply doesn’t want to look like his own members are running the show on these matters, so he’s chiming in as well. But the upshot here is that after Donald Trump refused to condemn his ally King, McConnell is now defying Trump and doing it himself.

McConnell and Trump have only ever been on the same page as a result of convenience and mutual criminality, and never out of any personal loyalty to each other. Their alliance was never going to last any longer than was convenient. McConnell has already been letting Trump hang out to dry on the government shutdown. Now McConnell is trying to take down one of Trump’s allies. Is this a sign that McConnell thinks Trump is a goner, and is no longer interested in propping him up? We’ll see. Mitch will do whatever is best for Mitch, not for Donald.