July 26, 2023
NARRATOR:
The most powerful Republican in the United States Senate was holding a routine press conference.
DARLENE SUPERVILLE, The Associated Press:
Mitch McConnell is now the longest-serving Republican senator from Kentucky.
SEN. MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY):
Well, good afternoon everyone.
DARLENE SUPERVILLE:
He’s the longest-serving Republican leader in history.
MITCH McCONNELL:
We're on a path to finishing the NDA—
EUGENE ROBINSON, The Washington Post:
He has been enormously powerful and enormously consequential. He is the adult in the Republican Party.
MITCH McCONNELL:
—and a string of, uh—
MALE NEWSREADER:
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell alarmed his colleagues when he froze during a news conference.
MALE NEWSREADER:
—suffering an episode in front of the cameras, unable to speak for quite some time.
MALE NEWSREADER:
—quickly turning to concern for the health of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
SEN. JOHN BARRASSO (R-WY):
[Whispering] Anything else you want to say, or should we just go back to your office? Do you want to say anything else to the press? OK, I'll take him back.
JAMES R. CARROLL, Louisville Courier-Journal, 1997-2015:
It’s very alarming to everybody watching it to see that happen. The political animals in this town immediately saw this as a sign that power is ebbing away. And that someone will come to challenge sooner rather than later.
FEMALE NEWSREADER:
Concern is growing for the 81-year-old leader. A fall in March left him with a concussion and fractured rib, and for months the senator has sometimes used a wheelchair.
MALE NEWSREADER:
The episodes have raised questions about McConnell's role as Senate Republican leader.
SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER (R-TN), 2003-21:
I’m not sure who would replace him if he weren’t there. Because right now, he’s the indispensable figure in the Republican Party, as well as the American government, for a stable, center-right point of view.
MALE NEWSREADER:
The attending physician for the Capitol says McConnell is not suffering strokes nor showing signs of Parkinson’s disease.
MALE NEWSREADER:
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell insisting there’s no reason for him to step down.
MALE NEWSREADER:
—uncertain what will happen in the next Congress or if he’ll run again in 2026.
NARRATOR:
Mitch McConnell: the consummate political operator who reshaped the Supreme Court and ushered in an era of partisanship and polarization—
NARRATOR:
—through shrewd choices and sacrifices—
NARRATOR:
—facing ongoing challenges, politically and physically, to his long hold on power.
BOY'S VOICE:
Remember me.
POLIO EDUCATIONAL FILM:
This is polio. Some may carry the mark and burden of polio paralysis for life.
NARRATOR:
Polio. Mitch McConnell was only 2 years old when it struck.
POLIO EDUCATIONAL FILM:
Would they recover, or would polio never be over for them?
LAMAR ALEXANDER:
Today it’s hard to imagine how scary polio was. There was no cure for it. I had classmates who were in an iron lung—in other words, lying on their back, breathing with help all day long. Some died from it.
POLIO EDUCATIONAL FILM:
There are so many to be remembered in the grim polio fight ahead. For them, polio is still a terrible reality.
"The Long Game" by Mitch McConnell
MITCH McCONNELL [reading from "The Long Game"]:
"You can walk, but you can’t walk." That’s what my mom would say to me after I was struck with polio at age 2, to explain why she wouldn’t let me get up on my feet.
MICHAEL TACKETT, McConnell biographer:
He was basically confined to a bedroom. And his mother would come in and they would do the physical therapy. That put him in a very difficult spot for such a young child. His father was off to war. His mother was left to take care of him. It had to be one of the most difficult, isolating things in the world.
"The Long Game" by Mitch McConnell
MITCH McCONNELL [reading from "The Long Game"]:
All I knew was that as other kids my age were easily learning to run, jump and climb, I was fighting from the confines of my bed for the chance to one day do the same.
REP. JOHN YARMUTH (D-KY), 2007-23:
You’re stuck in a room, and you’re left with your own thoughts so much. It’s got to have had a huge psychological impact. I suspect to a certain extent it affected his ability to relate to other people, since he missed several formative years of developing socialization skills.
NARRATOR:
He finally learned to walk, but Mitch would have a limp for the rest of his life.
KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, The New York Times:
Polio for Mitch McConnell was his first big challenge. And it’s something that gave him this sense of, if you face a challenge, you can overcome it. And you’ve seen that mentality play out at various junctures in his career.
NARRATOR:
He was often alone, an only child, his life upended by frequent moves around the South as his dad worked for the Army. Eventually they ended up in Louisville, Kentucky.
"The Long Game" by Mitch McConnell
MITCH McCONNELL [reading from "The Long Game"]:
I was halfway through the eighth grade, preparing to enter high school. The idea of starting over in a wholly unfamiliar place made this already daunting transition feel even more so. I was overwhelmed by how big the school was—so much so that I immediately became an introvert. But although I couldn’t know this at the time, these first uneasy months would spur me to set a clear, if seemingly out-of-reach, goal that would set the course of my life.
DAN BALZ, The Washington Post:
He tells the story of seeing an upperclassman speaking at a school assembly and recognizing the power that that person seemed to have, and how much he would like to be able to have that. He recognized that people had power in politics. That appealed to him.
NARRATOR:
The lonely kid had found his calling: politics.
TOM DREISBACH, NPR:
He was kind of the ultimate political nerd growing up. What other people would channel into sports, he channeled into these political competitions in school, like running for student body president or student council. He really took it super seriously.
"The Long Game" by Mitch McConnell
MITCH McCONNELL [reading from "The Long Game"]:
“That would be something,” I said. “Getting to be president of that big school and having the respect of your peers and an influence over the direction of the school.”
KELLY McEVERS, NPR:
He knew from the get-go that he wasn’t a popular person, that he wasn’t charismatic. That he wasn’t going to win because people liked him. So he was smart enough at the time to figure out, well, if people aren’t going to like me, then I have to get the popular kids to say they like me. So he literally went to the cheerleaders and the football players and convinced them to endorse him.
NARRATOR:
Mitch McConnell won.
"The Long Game" by Mitch McConnell
MITCH McCONNELL [reading from "The Long Game"]:
Having had my first taste of the responsibility and respect that came from holding elected office, I was hooked.
KAROUN DEMIRJIAN:
The fascination with respect or power, however you want to define it, is a through line for Mitch McConnell. He was drawn to politics because it’s something that gave him a feeling of the feedback of having people’s respect.
NARRATOR:
And when it came to politics in deeply Democratic Kentucky, Mitch McConnell was a rarity—a Republican.
TOM DREISBACH:
His dad had a really strong feeling towards Eisenhower, who was the Republican candidate for president in 1952. And then Mitch kind of took that on. And that was the beginning of his Republicanism.
KELLY McEVERS:
If you look at his yearbook picture, he’s got an "I Like Ike" button. He’s a politics nerd from the very beginning.
EUGENE ROBINSON:
Being a Republican in Kentucky in those days would be very lonely. You would certainly get used to being in the minority. That inculcates a certain iconoclasm or a certain willingness to go against the crowd.
NARRATOR:
And on a central issue of the time—civil rights—McConnell and his parents also stood out.
"The Long Game" by Mitch McConnell
MITCH McCONNELL [reading from "The Long Game"]:
On this issue, my parents were far ahead of their time and years beyond their peers. From an early age, they taught me that everyone deserved equal opportunities and the right to vote.
JAMES R. CARROLL:
You’re growing up at a time in the '60s, obviously, where segregation and outright discrimination was still rampant across the whole United States. And yet here you had a Republican who identified with the civil rights.
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.:
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed—
TOM DREISBACH:
He was an intern in Washington in 1963 when Martin Luther King Jr. led the March on Washington, the famous, iconic "I Have a Dream" speech, and he was able to see the crowds going to that speech.
NARRATOR:
While in college and law school, McConnell was swept up in the moment, campaigning for civil rights and writing op-eds.
MALE VOICE [reading]:
In order to realize the ideals of the Constitution, all segments of society must do their part to insure the basic rights of all citizens, regardless of race, creed or national origin.
NARRATOR:
McConnell’s idealism and ambition would be tested as anti-civil rights forces gained power in the Republican Party—
BARRY GOLDWATER:
Our Republican cause is to free our people—
NARRATOR:
—led by the hard-right presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.
AL CROSS, Louisville Courier-Journal, 1989-2004:
Barry Goldwater was driven by the energy in the Republican Party at the time. And the energy at the time was on the right wing. Farthest right, the John Birch Society.
BARRY GOLDWATER:
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.
NARRATOR:
As a senator, Goldwater had voted against the Civil Rights Act.
"The Long Game" by Mitch McConnell
MITCH McCONNELL [reading from "The Long Game"]:
To say that I was extremely disappointed that Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights bill doesn’t nearly capture how upset I was. So great was my anger, in fact, that on Nov. 3, 1964, I cast my vote for LBJ.
MONA CHAREN, Conservative columnist:
He was clearly an idealistic young man. He had a conscience. He was moved by trying to do what was right. And that is a—That's all to his credit.
NARRATOR:
But upon returning to Louisville to launch his political career, McConnell would start to show just what kind of politician he would be.
KEITH RUNYON, Louisville Courier-Journal, 1969-2012:
He was a young lawyer here in town, like so many others. And I think that he was somewhat underwhelming, really. He did not have a boisterous personality. He was not a frat boy type. He was buttoned up. He always had his tie on. And he looked a little bit out of place.
NARRATOR:
In a town dominated by Democrats, McConnell ran for county executive as a Republican.
KELLY McEVERS:
He had learned his lesson in high school, that you have to win over the popular kids. Who were the popular kids in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1977? The Democrats. It’s a Democratic city in a Democratic state. It’s very blue.
NARRATOR:
He worked to get an endorsement from the left-leaning local newspaper.
TELEVISION AD:
Courier-Journalism is quality journalism. The kind of journalism the region’s been getting for over a hundred years.
NARRATOR:
Keith Runyon was an editor at the newspaper.
KEITH RUNYON:
He came into the editorial boardroom at the Courier-Journal, where I worked, for his endorsement interview, and he sat down and he answered our questions. He came off as being enlightened, thoroughly honest. And he did a very, very good job in his interview.
NARRATOR:
He was one of the few Republicans to ever get the endorsement of the paper. It helped to convince Democratic voters. And he won.
AL CROSS:
And I think he’s adept enough at saying what all those people like to hear. That he was climbing the greasy pole. And when you are climbing the greasy pole, you grab for whatever traction you can find.
NARRATOR:
After just two terms as county executive, McConnell decided to make a bold leap: He’d run for the United States Senate.
KAROUN DEMIRJIAN:
He’s running to unseat somebody who’s fairly popular, who he doesn’t really have that much of a shot against. And he’s doing this as a Republican in a state that’s still not completely swinging that way. But McConnell calls in Roger Ailes.
NARRATOR:
Roger Ailes, a controversial political operative and the future founder of Fox News.
DAN BALZ:
Ailes loved the combat of it. Ailes loved conflict, and he loved to stick it to the opponent. He gave McConnell fair warning. "We can do it the old-fashioned way, we can try to puff you up." But as Ailes said, that's not going to work.
NARRATOR:
Ailes offered McConnell a choice.
"The Long Game" by Mitch McConnell
MITCH McCONNELL [reading from "The Long Game"]:
“Do you want to look nice, or do you want to take out your opponent and win this thing?” “I want to do what it takes,” I said. “I want to win this thing.” “Then leave the ads to me.”
EUGENE ROBINSON:
At the time that was a controversial choice. Do you go negative? There was kind of a stigma attached to being overly negative. Mitch McConnell wants to win. And that was a fundamental decision that you had to make back then.
NARRATOR:
In a sign of what was to come in his political life, McConnell put his ambitions first: He went negative, attacking Democrat "Dee" Huddleston for missing votes to make paid speeches.
McCONNELL "HOUND-DOG" TELEVISION AD:
My job was to find Dee Huddleston and get him back to work. Huddleston was missing big votes on Social Security, the budget, defense, even agriculture. Huddleston was skipping votes but making an extra $50,000 giving speeches.
JOSH HOLMES, Fmr. McConnell Chief of Staff:
Mitch McConnell is a ruthless campaigner. And he will pull no punches. He is renowned in Kentucky and nationally to be an incredible strategist when it comes to finding the weakest part of his opponent and seizing upon it.
McCONNELL "HOUND-DOG" TELEVISION AD:
Maybe we ought to let him make speeches and switch to Mitch for senator.
KELLY McEVERS:
And the pollsters told us that after that ad aired all over Kentucky, Mitch started to go up in the polls.
MALE REPORTER:
It was a come-from-behind race and the odds were against him, running against a two-term Democratic incumbent in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 1/2 to 1.
CROWD [chanting]:
We want Mitch! We want Mitch! We want Mitch!
KAROUN DEMIRJIAN:
The fact that he decided to go low in that campaign was an important lesson. This is a legitimate tactic. Just basically be forceful, and when you have to be ugly, you have to be ugly.
REAGAN "MORNING IN AMERICA" TV AD:
It’s morning again in America, and under the leadership of President Reagan, our country is prouder and stronger and better.
NARRATOR:
McConnell’s election came in the midst of a dramatic political moment.
CHARLES HOMANS, The New York Times:
Reagan really represented a new power within the party. Conservatives had really started to seize the commanding heights of the party, in a way that would profoundly change the landscape of American politics.
MALE REPORTER:
It is almost a totally clean sweep for Reagan.
NARRATOR:
Ronald Reagan had won 49 states, winning in Kentucky by almost 300,000 votes. McConnell had barely won by 5,000.
GEORGE WILL, Conservative columnist:
Mitch saw the shift going in the South. The South was going to move to the right. McConnell knew that there were tectonic changes going on in American life. And he couldn’t master the tectonic changes, he could adapt to them.
NARRATOR:
He’d move to the right, embrace Reagan’s conservatism, and he let everyone know it.
KELLY McEVERS:
Not long after he won that race, he was having a meal with Keith Runyon, who wrote that original editorial endorsing Mitch McConnell at the Louisville Courier-Journal.
KEITH RUNYON:
And when breakfast was over, he said, “Keith, I don’t know that you all will ever endorse me again.” And I said, “Well, why is that?” He said, “Because I’m going to have to become much more conservative to be reelected, much more conservative than you all are.” And so he became.
KELLY McEVERS:
And Keith always remembers this moment. He talks about it like, "I just couldn’t believe it. This person I thought he was, he’s turning into something else." Mitch McConnell’s like, "Of course I said that. Of course I would have to move to the right. It’s my job now. That’s where the Republican Party is going. I see where it’s going. And I’m going to go with the wind."
NARRATOR:
To gain power in Ronald Reagan’s Washington, McConnell needed an issue to demonstrate his conservative credentials. And he would find one in an explosive political moment.
GEORGE WILL:
Mitch McConnell was present at the creation, for better or worse, of modern politics. One great episode in that was the Bork confirmation fight.
PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN:
It is with great pleasure and deep respect that I nominate United States Court of Appeals Judge Robert H. Bork to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court.
GEORGE WILL:
That episode, it was, I think, a watershed moment in American history.
NARRATOR:
Liberals, outraged at Bork’s conservative views, launched a political assault with protests, phone banks—
WOMAN SPEAKER:
We are going to keep abortion safe and legal in New York.
NARRATOR:
—and attack ads.
LAMAR ALEXANDER:
This represented an attack on Bork primarily because of his views. That would be the way McConnell would look at it and the way I looked at it.
MALE SENATE CLERK:
Mr. Kennedy, no. Mr. Kerry—
NARRATOR:
At that time, McConnell was powerless. He watched as the Democrat-controlled Senate overwhelmingly defeated Bork’s nomination.
EUGENE ROBINSON:
The Bork nomination was a crucible, a turning point. It’s made him particularly focused on Supreme Court battles and particularly ruthless in the way he conducts them.
FEMALE SENATE CLERK:
Senator from Kentucky.
MITCH McCONNELL:
And so to Robert Bork, you happen to be the one who set the new Senate standard that will be applied, in my judgement, by a majority of the Senate prospectively. Unfortunately, it got set over your dead body, so to speak, politically.
GEORGE WILL:
The Bork confirmation fight was so stunning, and so bitter, that this was a moment when I think McConnell rightly said, “The rules have changed. I don’t make the rules, but I can play by them and can master them.”
MITCH McCONNELL:
We’re going to do it when we want to. And when we want to is going to be when the president, whoever he may be, sends up somebody we don’t like.
AL CROSS, Prof., Univ. of Kentucky:
If you go back and look at the speech that McConnell made, he said, "Sooner or later, this will come back to haunt you. Get ready. It'll happen to you all, too." That was the beginning of his long-term concern about the courts.
NARRATOR:
In the years that followed, McConnell would be a central combatant in the judicial wars—
PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH:
—that I will nominate Judge Clarence Thomas to serve as associate justice of the United States Supreme Court.
NARRATOR:
—as Democrat and Republican presidents tried to tip the balance of the court.
KAROUN DEMIRJIAN:
He kind of makes it his mission to try to leave a lasting legacy, because judgeships are—they can last a lifetime, right?
FEMALE NEWSREADER:
—expected to approve the nomination of John Roberts as chief justice—
MALE NEWSREADER:
The president sent Congress the name of his nominee to fill—
KAROUN DEMIRJIAN:
If he wants to leave a lasting mark on the country—
FEMALE NEWSREADER:
President Obama nominated Elena Kagan to the United States Supreme Court.
KAROUN DEMIRJIAN:
—this is the way to leave a mark.
NARRATOR:
Through it all, McConnell had been climbing to power in the GOP: Senate majority whip, Republican leader and finally majority leader.
JOHN YARMUTH:
There’s nobody who’s more focused on political conquest than he is. There may not have ever been anybody who has spent his entire life calculating. He knows more than everybody else. It was how much he could win and how much power he could achieve.
NARRATOR:
McConnell had real power. And still holding on to that grievance about what had happened to Robert Bork, he waited for the right moment to use it.
MALE ANNOUNCER:
This is CNN Breaking News.
FEMALE NEWSREADER:
Breaking news just in to us here at CNN. United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died.
EUGENE ROBINSON:
Scalia, the intellectual force on the right on the court, suddenly dies. So what’s at stake is the ideological balance on the court.
JONATHAN KARL, Author, Betrayal:
With that vacancy, the question is will a Republican-controlled Senate allow President Obama to replace Scalia—
JOSH HOLMES:
I think it’s very clearly the most consequential decision Mitch McConnell made in his public career.
PETER BAKER, The New York Times:
Mitch McConnell doesn’t even wait for the day to end after Antonin Scalia dies to put out a statement saying, in effect, we’re not going to let President Obama replace him. That it’s an election year, we’re going to wait for the next president to nominate somebody.
MALE REPORTER:
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell just releasing a statement—
MALE VOICE [reading]:
—this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.
DARLENE SUPERVILLE:
It was a bold move on Sen. McConnell’s part, to basically stand in the way of a president being able to nominate someone to fill a seat on the Supreme Court.
FEMALE REPORTER:
Four and a half weeks after Justice Scalia died, today President Obama—
NARRATOR:
With almost a year left in his presidency, Barack Obama forged ahead, undeterred by McConnell’s threat.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
Today, I am nominating Chief Judge Merrick Brian Garland to join the Supreme Court.
MALE FOX NEWS NEWSREADER:
Mitch McConnell joins us now from Capitol Hill. Senator, thanks for being here—
NARRATOR:
On television, McConnell went on the offensive.
MITCH McCONNELL:
The right-of-center world, it does not want this vacancy filled by this president.
But we're not giving a lifetime appointment to this president on the way out the door to change the Supreme Court for the next 25 or 30 years.
NARRATOR:
And in the Republican-controlled Senate, he made clear there could be no wavering.
NINA TOTENBERG, NPR:
Sen. Moran from Kansas said he thought maybe there should be a hearing. And McConnell just said to him, "You keep talking like that, and I’m running a primary opponent against you." And Moran backed off. McConnell was ruthless and brilliant.
NARRATOR:
There would be no hearings. No votes. No confirmation of Judge Garland.
MALE REPORTER:
Democrats are outraged by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—
EUGENE ROBINSON:
It was outrageous at the time, and it’s still outrageous. They kept the seat open for nearly a year, refusing to give Merrick Garland even a hearing, even the courtesy of being rejected. But he did it. He had the power to do it, and so he did.
NARRATOR:
It wouldn’t be long before Mitch McConnell faced a test of just how far he would go to get what he wanted.
DONALD TRUMP:
We are going to drain the swamp of corruption in Washington, D.C.
NARRATOR:
Whether to support a Republican presidential candidate he didn’t like.
DONALD TRUMP:
We are led by very, very stupid people.
JAMES R. CARROLL, Capital News Service:
He faces a horrible dilemma. To say that Trump was not McConnell’s cup of tea would be an understatement of the first order.
DONALD TRUMP:
Build a wall!
JAMES R. CARROLL:
Everything that Trump voiced and stood for, McConnell, I think, had very little respect for.
TOM DREISBACH:
2016 rolls around, Donald Trump steamrolls the entire field with a campaign that was often outright racist.
DONALD TRUMP:
When Mexico sends its people, they’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.
—a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.
NARRATOR:
McConnell, once an advocate of civil rights, made a shrewd calculation to remain silent.
MITCH McCONNELL:
I’m going to continue to avoid weighing in on the presidential contest at this point.
GEORGE WILL:
Mitch McConnell understood Trump's lies. And he understood the coarseness and the vulgarity and the general seaminess of it all. He is repulsed by the amateurism. He has the craftsman's dislike of the charlatan.
NARRATOR:
But as he had with Reagan, McConnell sensed also where the GOP was headed. He knew he needed Trump.
JOHN YARMUTH:
If the court was that important to him, he wanted to make sure that he had someone he could influence in terms of Supreme Court appointments.
MITCH McCONNELL:
And on that sad day when we lost Justice Scalia, I made another pledge that Obama would not fill this seat. That honor will go to Donald Trump next year.
KEITH RUNYON:
He sees what is needed to hold onto power and he made the choice. It's his choice. He's the person who has to sleep with it. Mind you, in 2016, Donald Trump was not the figure that he is today. He was not inevitable.
NARRATOR:
Trump’s election, and McConnell’s support, was a moment with far-reaching consequences.
MALE REPORTER:
Donald Trump will be the 45th president of the United States.
SCOTT JENNINGS, McConnell political adviser:
There was a lot of skepticism on the right of what Donald Trump was, and holding that Supreme Court seat open just as a political matter reminded Republicans, we can't leave to chance that Hillary Clinton might put a liberal on the court.
GEORGE WILL:
If Scalia had not died then, and certainly if McConnell had not said what he did, Trump would not have been elected. One of the interesting caroms of politics is that Mitch McConnell brought about the election of someone who, in almost every particular, he deplored.
NARRATOR:
McConnell had bet that Trump could deliver conservative control of the Supreme Court. And one of the new president’s first acts was naming Neil Gorsuch to the Scalia seat.
MALE NEWSREADER:
The longest vacancy on the Supreme Court since the Civil War has been filled.
KAROUN DEMIRJIAN:
McConnell approaches Trump transactionally. At the outset, McConnell thinks, OK, we can work together, we can get things done that I want to get done. This is an opportunity for me to be able to get some wins here. And so I’m willing to work with this guy, because I think that I can actually steer him where I want to go.
NARRATOR:
Even McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, was given a seat of power.
DARLENE SUPERVILLE:
Donald Trump decided to nominate her to be Transportation secretary because of the link to McConnell, feeling that if he nominated his wife then he’d have a better relationship with Sen. McConnell. He could get more out of the Senate with her there than without her there.
NARRATOR:
Chao, born in Taiwan, the daughter of a shipping magnate and a former secretary of Labor.
JAMES R. CARROLL:
She’s been active in Republican politics for a number of years. She campaigns with McConnell in Kentucky itself. So she’s very much a partner and adviser to him.
MONA CHAREN:
McConnell was being transactional, which is a language that Trump speaks very well, and McConnell does, too. "I will get judges and you get to be president, and I get to have my wife as secretary of Transportation." And it’s give and take, give and take.
NARRATOR:
But soon the profound cost of their choice to support Trump would become clear—
WHITE SUPREMACIST PROTESTERS [chanting]:
White lives matter! White lives matter! White lives matter! White lives matter! White lives matter!
NARRATOR:
—in Charlottesville, Virginia.
MALE NEWSREADER:
Mayhem in Charlottesville.
FEMALE NEWSREADER:
—some members of alt-right groups—
NARRATOR:
White supremacists in the streets.
WHITE SUPREMACIST PROTESTERS [chanting]:
White lives matter! White lives matter!
NARRATOR:
Counterprotesters.
FEMALE REPORTER:
—minutes ago saw the largest group of counterprotesters marching—
NARRATOR:
Culminating in horrific violence.
FEMALE NEWSREADER:
Violent clashes between white supremacists and counterprotesters—
FEMALE NEWSREADER:
—the chaos, which has reached a boiling point.
NARRATOR:
The president fanned the flames at a Trump Tower press conference.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:
That was a horrible, horrible day. I think there’s blame on both sides. And I have no doubt about it, and you don’t have any doubt about it, either. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group—
TOM DREISBACH:
Trump makes these comments with Elaine Chao just behind him, right? Taiwanese-American who has dealt with racism growing up in America, and also spouse of Mitch McConnell.
DONALD TRUMP:
But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, OK?
DARLENE SUPERVILLE:
What do you do as a member of the cabinet? You’re standing next to the president, and you just have to stand there with the blankest look on your face possible. And that’s what she did.
DONALD TRUMP:
Thank you all very much. Thank you.
MALE REPORTER:
What about the Nazis who support you?
KAROUN DEMIRJIAN:
That’s a difficult moment for her and for McConnell, because it’s not the brand of Republicanism they believe in. It’s not what they represent. It’s not who they are.
TOM DREISBACH:
Mitch McConnell seems to sense that he can’t stay silent. But he puts out just a statement. He doesn’t say anything publicly, he doesn’t go to the microphones. He puts out a statement that condemns hatred and bigotry in all its forms.
MALE VOICE [reading]:
We can have no tolerance for an ideology of racial hatred. There are no good neo-Nazis.
TOM DREISBACH:
But the statement, really notably, does not include the name Donald Trump.
MARK LEIBOVICH, Author, Thank You for Your Servitude:
Mitch McConnell is the classic hold-your-nose guy. Yes, Mitch McConnell loves to say he’s a product of the Civil Rights Movement, but Mitch McConnell much more so will be remembered as someone who is a bottom-line guy. And bottom line means power and it means staying in office.
NARRATOR:
McConnell had made his choice to not confront Trump over Charlottesville. And just a few weeks later, at the White House, he aligned himself even closer to the president.
JOSH HOLMES:
They decided at that point that they were going to try to shelf everything that had happened up until then, and they were going to focus on judges. And they did. And they did.
NARRATOR:
In return for conservative judges, McConnell would give Trump what he wanted most—loyalty.
They consummated the moment with a press conference.
DONALD TRUMP:
Thank you very much. I just want to say that—
CHARLES HOMANS:
They go out to the Rose Garden, and Trump makes these remarks.
DONALD TRUMP:
—with the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who has been a friend of mine for a long time.
CHARLES HOMANS:
And it is sort of the beginning of this new period of them actually sort of working together.
DONALD TRUMP:
—despite what we read, we're probably now, I think—at least as far as I’m concerned—closer than ever before. And the relationship is very good.
CHARLES HOMANS:
It is a moment where the sort of oddness of this marriage becomes extremely clear in three dimensions outside of the White House.
MITCH McCONNELL:
Well, thank you very much, Mr. President. I want to underscore what the president said. We have the same agenda. We’ve been friends and acquaintances for a long time—
JAMES R. CARROLL:
He was not only legitimizing what Trump was doing, he was enabling it. You didn’t see McConnell break with this president of his own party. But in the great look-back from history, that may be seen as a major lost opportunity.
NARRATOR:
Now, with the president’s support, McConnell would forge some of the biggest accomplishments of his political career.
DARLENE SUPERVILLE:
He saw an opportunity to realize his dream to fill the federal courts with more conservative justices. The lower courts, the appellate courts, straight on up to the United States Supreme Court.
NARRATOR:
On the Supreme Court, Trump had already filled Scalia’s seat with Neil Gorsuch.
FEMALE NEWSREADER:
—Neil Gorsuch confirmed as Justice Gorsuch.
NARRATOR:
Moderate justice Anthony Kennedy—
FEMALE NEWSREADER:
—the centrist, moderating force—
NARRATOR:
—was replaced by conservative Brett Kavanaugh.
FEMALE NEWSREADER:
Brett Kavanaugh to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy—
NARRATOR:
Then, the death of liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
FEMALE NEWSREADER:
This is a Fox News alert. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died at the age of 87.
NARRATOR:
It was the chance McConnell had been waiting for since Bork. The only problem: It was just six weeks until the 2020 election.
MALE NEWSREADER:
In the shadow of a presidential election, the battle lines over the court’s future already being drawn.
NARRATOR:
That night McConnell reached the president on Air Force One.
JOSH HOLMES:
McConnell told him two things. He said, "First, I’m going to put out a statement that says we’re going to fill the vacancy. Second," he said, "you’ve got to nominate Amy Coney Barrett."
MALE NEWSREADER:
McConnell says the Senate will act to fill the vacancy, even though he spent most of 2016 denying a confirmation hearing to Merrick Garland.
NARRATOR:
It was starkly different from the position he took in the moments after Justice Scalia’s death.
MONA CHAREN:
Now we’ve come full circle. He held open the Scalia seat on the principle that the voters should have a say in who gets to appoint the next justice, so he held it open for eight or nine months. Now, it’s only a matter of weeks. He says, "Oh, yeah, this is different." [Laughs] And so he rushes to confirm Amy Coney Barrett.
FEMALE REPORTER:
Do you understand why many Americans view this as a double-standard?
MITCH McCONNELL:
I can only repeat that we have an obligation under the Constitution, should we choose to take advantage of it, to fill the vacancy, and I assure you that’s very likely to happen.
EUGENE ROBINSON:
He was able to withstand being called on the obvious hypocrisy, being slammed left and right. He was able to withstand that, and he toughed it out, and he got what he wanted.
NARRATOR:
Just days before the presidential election—
AMY CONEY BARRETT:
I, Amy Coney Barrett, do solemnly swear—
NARRATOR:
—the new justice was sworn in.
AMY CONEY BARRETT:
So help me God.
JOSH HOLMES:
He has been working towards this moment his entire professional career. And it was all coming to fruition. All of the judicial wars that started with Robert Bork. Now was the moment that he finally got what he came for.
MALE NEWSREADER:
—dramatically altering the ideological makeup of the court in a more conservative direction.
MICHAEL TACKETT:
He remade the federal judiciary and the United States Supreme Court.
MALE NEWSREADER:
It’s a court with an energized conservative majority that’s already demonstrated it is ready and willing to overturn decades of precedent and settled law.
MICHAEL TACKETT:
To put three people on the Supreme Court, we've already seen some very fundamental changes in American life, not the least of which was the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
MALE NEWSREADER:
The conservative majority by a 6 to 3 vote overturning Roe v. Wade, the right to choose abortion.
MICHAEL TACKETT:
So the decisions that Mitch McConnell made ended up having profound consequences.
KELLY McEVERS:
We asked him, "If they were going to build a monument to you, what would it be? What were you the champion for? What are people going to remember you for when all of us are long gone?" And he's basically like, "Judges. That's the big accomplishment of my career, is getting more conservative judges on to the federal courts." Not about an issue, not about a specific issue. Not like, "We overturned Roe v. Wade." He wouldn't say that. Because I just don't think that's what it is for him. I think it's that, "Look at all this winning. We won a bunch of stuff. We turned this country in a different direction. I did that."
NARRATOR:
In reshaping the Supreme Court, Mitch McConnell had forged his legacy in Washington and on American life. But the costs of his alliance with Donald Trump were accumulating. And in the aftermath of the 2020 election, McConnell would again face a profound test of his ideals.
MALE NEWSREADER:
—to 270. It’s 192-114—
MALE NEWSREADER:
—right now Biden has 220, Trump has 213.
DONALD TRUMP:
This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election.
JOSH HOLMES:
The view, at this point, initially is, this looks like it’s probably over. It felt off. It felt like it wasn’t going to be able to get to a victorious outcome for President Trump.
NARRATOR:
But McConnell wouldn’t say it publicly.
JONATHAN MARTIN, Co-author, This Will Not Pass:
He knows Trump has lost, but he does not want to anger Trump.
MALE REPORTER:
Mr. Leader, can you tell us, have you seen any evidence of election fraud that you think might overturn the election results?
MALE PRESS AIDE:
All right, folks, let’s wrap it up. Thank you very much. All right guys, let’s go. Come on.
JONATHAN MARTIN:
But McConnell chooses silence.
MALE PRESS AIDE:
All right guys, come on, let’s go. All right, thank you.
JONATHAN MARTIN:
He does not acknowledge Biden’s victory because he’s trying to keep Trump happy. He’s trying to placate Trump.
REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL), 2011-23:
I heard from a specific senator who said, “Mitch has told us to stay quiet against the president in this period.” And I think that led to a lot of what otherwise would be influential senators at least countering the voice of Donald Trump being silent. And silence is complicity.
MALE NEWSREADER:
Supporters of the Stop the Steal movement—
NARRATOR:
As the election lies spread, Trump’s followers grew more and more violent.
MALE TRUMP SUPPORTER:
F--- antifa!
MALE NEWSREADER:
—saying the election was being stolen from the president.
EUGENE ROBINSON:
That period immediately after the 2020 election was the low point of Mitch McConnell’s career. That was a moment for McConnell to come out not once, not twice, but regularly and say, "This is crazy. This is ridiculous." I think he failed the country in not speaking out more forcefully. Because he was in that position, he had that power, and he didn’t really do that.
NARRATOR:
It was six weeks after the election when Mitch McConnell finally publicly conceded the reality.
JONATHAN KARL, Author, Betrayal:
McConnell waited until there could be absolutely no doubt about the election results to come out to congratulate Joe Biden.
MITCH McCONNELL:
The Electoral College has spoken. So today I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden.
JOSH HOLMES:
He knew that his relationship with President Trump would forever change at that moment. He knew that Trump had increasingly been trying to rein in any Republicans that observed reality at this point. And the significance of McConnell saying it’s over means it’s over.
JAN. 6 RIOTERS [chanting]:
Fight for Trump! Fight for Trump!
NARRATOR:
But by Jan. 6, the lies had fed a rage that was about to be unleashed on McConnell and his colleagues. As Congress prepared to certify the election, the Capitol and McConnell’s Senate chamber were breached.
JAN. 6 RIOTERS:
McConnell!
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN senior political contributor:
I asked if they had gotten into his office. And he said, "Well, I had eight or nine of my staffers in the office and they used the furniture to barricade the door. And they were pounding on the door. And they were wondering if the mob was going to break through."
MALE JAN. 6 RIOTER:
We need more patriots in here!
January 6 Committee footage
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY):
How soon can you have the place cleaned out?
KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, Co-author, Unchecked:
McConnell was rattled by the attack on the Capitol. He gets a purpose of needing to make sure that they have to get back into the Capitol. He’s the one that pushes that from their lockdown facility and forces that to happen.
MITCH McCONNELL:
We’re not going to let these people keep us from finishing our business, so we need you to get the building cleared, give us the OK so we can go back in session and finish up the people’s business as soon as possible.
NARRATOR:
That night, when the Trump mob was cleared, McConnell returned to the Capitol.
SCOTT JENNINGS:
He was stunned and offended that Donald Trump thinks so little of our government that he would do what he did with that mob.
NARRATOR:
After certifying Joe Biden’s win, McConnell stopped to speak to reporter Jonathan Martin.
JONATHAN MARTIN:
He thinks this is a moment of opportunity. He feels, he tells me, exhilarated because McConnell loathes Trump, and he's loathed him for some time. And now he believes Trump, for once and for all, is going to be gone.
FEMALE NEWSREADER:
The first cabinet member resignation—
NARRATOR:
The day after the attack on the Capitol, Elaine Chao was the first member of Trump’s cabinet to resign.
FEMALE NEWSREADER:
Elaine Chao said she was deeply troubled by the president’s response—
NARRATOR:
Democrats began moving towards impeaching President Trump.
Voice of Speaker Pelosi
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA):
He must go. He is a clear and present danger to the nation that we all love.
ALEXANDER BURNS, Co-author, This Will Not Pass:
On Jan. 11, the Monday after the attack, McConnell has lunch in Louisville with two of his longtime advisers. He says that if Donald Trump’s behavior on Jan. 6 wasn’t an impeachable offense, he doesn’t know what is. And he predicts in that moment that there will be the votes in the Senate to convict Donald Trump.
NARRATOR:
Two days later, the House impeached the president, sending it to the Senate.
January 20, 2021
NARRATOR:
His presidency over and the impeachment pending, Donald Trump left Washington. If McConnell had hoped it would finally be Trump’s exile from the GOP, it wasn’t to be.
JONATHAN KARL:
What happened after that? Well, a lot of those Republicans came right back in the Trump fold. They saw that Republican voters around the country, a lot of them Trump voters, still supported Trump after the attack on the Capitol. Those are their voters. Those are the voters that they need.
NARRATOR:
As he had throughout his career, McConnell faced a stark choice about what he was willing to do to hold onto his power.
KAROUN DEMIRJIAN:
The weeks that followed between Jan. 6 and when the Senate actually received impeachment charges that they had to vote on, McConnell was wrestling with wanting to convict the president and yet getting swayed and kind of looking for off-ramps so that he wouldn’t have to necessarily make that choice.
NARRATOR:
McConnell continued to hold Trump responsible.
MITCH McCONNELL:
Former President Trump’s actions were a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty.
JAMES R. CARROLL:
This speech is a cry. As I was watching that address, I thought four years of frustration and anger has just exploded.
MITCH McCONNELL:
President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it.
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D-VT):
Senators, the question is on the Article of Impeachment.
NARRATOR:
But when it mattered, McConnell voted with his members to acquit the former president.
PATRICK LEAHY:
The yeas are 57, the nays are 43. Donald John Trump is not guilty as charged in the Article of Impeachment.
AL CROSS:
One of the conundrums of being a party leader is that you can’t lead too strongly. Sometimes you have to be a follower if you want to remain a leader. It’s certainly an exercise in cognitive dissonance.
Mitch McConnell the institutionalist and Mitch McConnell the party leader. Sometimes those roles are in conflict.
NARRATOR:
Mitch McConnell had chosen his side.
MALE FOX NEWS REPORTER:
There’ll be a lot of talk this weekend about 2024. If the president was the party’s nominee, would you support him?
MITCH McCONNELL:
The nominee of the party? Absolutely.
MONA CHAREN:
He is not the idealistic young man he had been back at home. Being in power had changed him. He had become too in love with power, and so he was willing to make too many compromises in the name of holding onto power.
NARRATOR:
In 2023, Mitch McConnell became the longest-serving leader in Senate history.
August 30, 2023
MITCH McCONNELL:
OK.
MALE REPORTER:
Senator, you’re up for reelection in three short years. What are your thoughts on that?
MITCH McCONNELL:
I’m sorry, I had a hard time hearing you.
MALE REPORTER:
That’s OK. What are your thoughts on running for reelection in 2026?
MITCH McCONNELL:
What are my thoughts about what?
MALE REPORTER:
Running for reelection in 2026?
MITCH McCONNELL:
Oh, that’s uh—
FEMALE PRESS AIDE:
Did you hear the question, Senator? Running for reelection in 2026?
MITCH McCONNELL:
Yeah.
FEMALE PRESS AIDE:
All right, I’m sorry, you all. We’re going to need a minute. Senator? Vinny?
JAMES R. CARROLL:
He’s 81 years old. He is balancing a heck of a lot. And he’s sort of a leader in a party that he doesn’t really know anymore. And how long does he want to do that? And how long do they want him to do that? That’s the other question.
FEMALE PRESS AIDE:
OK, thank you, all.
MITCH McCONNELL:
OK, thanks.
MALE REPORTER:
Can I just give a quick question—
FEMALE PRESS AIDE:
Thank you. Sorry, thank you.
FEMALE NEWSREADER:
New questions about the health of the Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell.
MALE NEWSREADER:
There are whispers in the Capitol and Kentucky about McConnell’s long-term viability—
FEMALE NEWSREADER:
A lot of questions swirling around, a lot of speculation, but Mitch McConnell saying that he’s up for the job.
FEMALE NEWSREADER:
Despite reassurances, some Republican senators say they’re concerned if McConnell is fit to continue leading the party.
