The FRONTLINE Interviews
Josh Holmes
Former Chief of Staff for Mitch McConnell
Josh Holmes is a political consultant and a former chief of staff and campaign manager for then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
The following interview was conducted by the Kirk Documentary Group’s Mike Wiser for FRONTLINE on June 1, 2022. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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Trump’s 2016 Candidacy
So let's go back to 2015-2016, and let's start just sort of, in general terms, as Donald Trump—this is maybe even before he starts winning in the primaries, as he's arriving on the scene, how was he viewed?How was he viewed by Leader McConnell?How was he viewed by you?How was he viewed by the Republican Party?
Well, I think initially, because Donald Trump had done this before, right?There had been two or three times in the last decade where Donald Trump had threatened to run for president, and it more or less became a publicity show.And so I think a lot of people in the party believed at the time that this is yet another sort of show and that he was going to maybe get right to the edge of running for president and then decide against it, and once again be in the headlines for a week or two, which he did very effectively throughout the '80s and '90s and early 2000s, and so this could be just another episode of that.
When he actually announced, it was different.And I think people understood at the beginning of the primary that name ID, name recognition amongst the public is an important, powerful force at the beginning of a election.It's why the Bush name, for example, when Jeb was in, was such an advantage at the time, because people didn't know the other candidates that had been sort of early on in the race.The Trump name was ubiquitous; everybody knew the Trump name.And so I think there was a feeling that, although when he announced he had a very early lead, that that would recede with a period of time as people got to know the other candidates.That was definitely not the case.
When did you start to take him seriously?At what moment did it seem like this is—something is happening here, you know, as he starts winning some of the primaries, as he starts building momentum?And what's the reaction to that?
I think the debates are definitely when the entire party had to start taking him very seriously, because in the history of the Republican Party, very, very rarely has anyone ever been nominated basically trying to hijack somebody else's movement, right?You can look at almost every Republican president and pretty much almost every Republican nominee, when they're nominated it's because they bring their own movement with them.It's something authentic to them.It's unique.It's something the Republican Party is unique from the Democratic Party in that way.
And on the stage, on the debate stage, you had 17 candidates.Fifteen essentially were trying to hijack the Tea Party movement, which was at that point now in its third cycle.It had begun to wane in terms of its intensity, but every single candidate was speaking in the terms to try to align themselves with the Tea Party.One candidate was not at all, and that was John Kasich, who was out of the mainstream of the Republican primary electorate at that point, and the other candidate who wasn't was Donald Trump.
There was something very unique, very entertaining.The debates immediately became must-see TV not just for political watchers, but basically anybody.You had to watch this thing because it was hilarious.For the first time in anybody's memory, debates were funny.They were entertaining.You watched him make fun of people.You watched him sort of speak like everybody else would at your dinner table when talking about politics.And that was new.That was unique.These weren't poll-tested lines.This was not a focus group plan of attack from Donald Trump.It was right from the hip, and for a lot of people, it was really refreshing.
And as he starts to win primaries, as he starts to become clear that it's not just entertaining, but he's somebody who could become the Republican nominee, what is the reaction from somebody like Leader McConnell?
Well, look, the whole party, at that stage, was going through a real identity crisis.There were huge fissures within the party in terms of what direction things ought to go.If you recall, Donald Trump was, at the end of the nominating process, basically running against Ted Cruz.Ted Cruz made a ton of different enemies within the Republican Party at the time, and so there wasn't—it wasn't as if he had a clear alternative to where Donald Trump was going.In fact, I think there were a lot of people within the establishment of the Republican Party that thought, hey, why not Donald Trump, because we already know what Ted Cruz is over the last six years.So in a lot of ways, this was sort of difficult to understand how you had arrived at a moment in the party where you were about to nominate someone who you believed had a less than even chance of winning the election itself.That was the most difficult part for the party, because polling at that point had suggested that Donald Trump was a decided underdog to Hillary Clinton, and almost any other candidate we could field was at very least neck and neck.
And so there was frustration with the idea that the party was about to nominate somebody who didn't give us our best shot to win back the White House for the first time in eight years.That being said, there was also a lot to work with there.Donald Trump was somebody who was new to the scene.He had less than well formulated views on many issues that people cared deeply about in the Republican Party, like the issue of judges, which ultimately—in a lot of ways, I think—defined his presidency.There were efforts made to get him up to speed and have him understand the importance of a whole range of issues that, with another candidate, you may not have had that opportunity.
So here's one of those questions about "in retrospect" versus "what you see at the time."So in retrospect, if you look back at 2015-2016, you see some things.The first Iowa caucus, for example, Donald Trump says was rigged by Ted Cruz.And there's talk about violence at the rallies.He gives a speech where he says, "I alone can fix it," which people look back on and they say, "Was that sort of an authoritarian moment from this nominee?"Was there concern at that point about Donald Trump and democracy and what he represented?
… Look, Donald Trump's candidacy was something brand new for the Republican Party.It was untested.This was essentially a celebrity candidate, which, you could make your arguments about Ronald Reagan, but he spent a couple of decades deeply involved in politics, including being governor of California, before he arrived on the scene nationally.For Donald Trump, this was really brand new.
I think there's an old adage within politics where people generally believe that, when you're bestowed the responsibility of a nominee or bestowed the responsibility of a president, that your behavior may change and that your attitudes towards the gravity of the office may change.And I think everybody viewed Donald Trump through that same lens.It was almost impossible to believe that, when you're elected to represent 300-plus-million Americans, that your perspective doesn't change.And it had, basically, to every one of his predecessors.
So when people look back, and they say there was a choice to be made—obviously the Republican leadership did not nominate Donald Trump; the party members and the voters nominated him—but was there a choice to be made of whether they were going to go along with it or not?Was there a choice to be made?
There's this notion within sort of elite circles that somehow, that if you have an elected representation in Congress, for example, you can somehow control democracy itself.I think what we found out over the last few years is democracy can't be controlled by anything other than the people, right?If you're elected to represent the people, the funny thing about that democracy is you kind of have to do it, right?And at that point, in the summer of 2016, the people were getting on board with Donald J. Trump.
Now, there was a lot of trepidation.I think you remember Speaker Ryan, Leader McConnell and others more than once chastising him for what they felt like was going out of bounds in terms of discussions about—I remember there was a judge in Indiana that ultimately became the subject of some consternation—a lot of issues people felt much more obligated to speak out against a nominee than they typically would.But there was no point in that summer where they were going to sabotage the Republican Party and all of their efforts in the House and the Senate, because the people were with Donald Trump, and they had to recognize that.And that's the thing about democracy.
On the other side of the aisle, the Democrats, Hillary Clinton has a number of attacks on Donald Trump, and some of them say not only is he authoritarian, but he's "alt-right," the "deplorables" comment about the people who were supporting him.Can you help us understand?I mean, did the Democrats understand Trump?Did they understand how to respond in that moment?And how much goes on on the other side of the aisle, too, for what results?
Democrats definitely made some very big mistakes in trying to prosecute an argument against Donald Trump.The party, sort of unbeknownst to the leadership, including Hillary Clinton at that point, had drifted coastal.It had become much less of that Midwestern labor base that it had been for generations.That's the Democratic Party that Hillary Clinton grew up in and Joe Biden grew up in, and all of the sort of thought leaders of the Democratic Party just assumed that they were still connected to the industrial Midwest, and they weren't.They weren't even close.The way that they spoke about issues did not resonate.The things that they prioritized and wanted to talk about were things that people couldn't even imagine in the center of this country being a priority over things like, you know, jobs.I mean, this had become a widening gap over a period of years at the end of the Obama administration that you saw play out in midterm elections, but it all sort of started coming to fruition in 2016.
And the impetus behind a lot of these attacks on Donald Trump were that he was profane; he was gruff; he was unpolished; he didn't know what he was doing.Remember, we wouldn't trust him with a nuclear football.Well, essentially what they were saying was that all these people in the center of the country, we wouldn't trust you with the football either.And that was the message that was delivered time and time and time again.It had nothing to do with Donald J. Trump as a person.It had everything to do with what he represented at that moment, and what he represented was the rejection of coastal elitist thinking that had gotten us eight years of the Obama administration and widened the gap between the elites in this country and everyone else.
Republican Response to Trump’s Election
So how surprising is it when he wins and he becomes the president of the United States?And how does that scramble the board?
It was definitely surprising.I was sitting in the basement of the National Republican Senatorial Committee with Leader McConnell and a few others that night, and we were primarily interested in the Senate races, which at that point were beginning to look pretty good.And we ticked through Florida and North Carolina and Pennsylvania, and we started to feel sort of optimistic about the direction that everything was headed.
And then all of a sudden Wisconsin tips over for us, which was terrific, but then it also did for Trump, and I remember Leader McConnell leaning back and looking at me and saying, "I think we're going to make America great again."And for me, that was—it was something I knew was a possibility, but I certainly didn't think it was a high likelihood going into Election Day.And I think a lot of people, typically when they would plan out what a transition would look like, there's a lot of work that goes into that, to try to synchronize an agenda and make sure that staff are in place.And a lot of that stuff just wasn't done, and I've got to think some of that wasn't done because people didn't think it could happen.
And when he says, … "We're going to make America great," is that because he sees an opportunity here with the House, the Senate, Republican president?What is in that moment that somebody like Leader McConnell sees, as Trump is coming in?
I mean, he's obviously repeating the tagline that was omnipresent throughout the Trump campaign, but yes, I think that the Republicans, by and large, believed that there was great opportunity in this.As I said, Donald Trump did not have well formulated views on anything other than like three or four important policy pieces that were kind of the planks of his campaign.Everything else was a blank slate.And so there was an opportunity there to not only help educate the administration but prioritize things that the rest of the Republican Party had been working on for years.That opportunity with united Republican government doesn't get any better than that.I mean, that is the full house of cards.That's essentially exactly what you want and you work to try to achieve once a decade, once every two decades.It's generational almost.And so your capability of actually delivering results in a moment like that is terrific, and I think a lot of Republicans saw opportunity in that.
… Some people have told us this: that he was seen as a showman who they thought was going to be a guy who was in front of the camera or having signing ceremonies and that they would be able to manage; that a Leader McConnell or a Paul Ryan would be able to manage the details of the bills, and sort of Trump would do his own thing as president.Was that how he was seen at that point, or was there a sense, like maybe he's going to push back, and maybe he's a force to be reckoned with?
I don't think anybody was dismissive of him at all.Look, you don't get to be president of the United States if you have a passive personality, and Donald Trump certainly didn't have a passive personality, so I don't think anybody thought he was going to be a pushover.I think people thought that there was going to be great opportunity in helping to fill in an agenda for this administration, right?You clearly knew where he stood on issues like immigration and trade, but there was a whole bunch of things with foreign policy, with domestic energy, with taxes and spending and everything else that basically went unsaid during a campaign.And the Republican Party had been working for decades to try to make progress in each of those policy silos, and so I think people saw this as a real opportunity to work with this president to get something like that done.
Now, you ask about how they sort of viewed a relationship with Donald Trump.They didn't know.Nobody knew.You know, Donald Trump had been a donor in the Republican Party.The amount of time that he had spent around legislative leaders and key party officials was relatively limited, even after the entire nomination process, so I don't think anybody knew what his personality ultimately was like.I think that they saw a lot of things during the campaign that gave them hope and gave them caution, and they were trying to figure it out.And so, you know, the first few months of that administration were a little hairy, from that regard.
McConnell’s Compromise on Judges
… How important was the judicial nominees to Leader McConnell and to his relationship with President Trump?
Look, the issue of the judiciary judges have always been incredibly important to Leader McConnell.Dates back to the earliest years of his career.He believes fundamentally that it is the best way to make generational change, shifting this country from whatever to the center right, right?If you're going to make progress on the conservative side of the ledger, the best way to do it is to put a sound conservative judiciary together, because tax policy comes and goes; presidents of both parties come and go; majorities in the House and Senate come and go.All of the legislation that you can do is all entirely reliant upon the attitudes of the American people every two years.The judiciary is there to stay.
And so he viewed this as an incredibly important part of what unified Republican government would look like.Add to that Leader McConnell made what he regards as the most significant decision of his entire career in leaving the Scalia seat open for the Supreme Court, not confirming Merrick Garland, not bringing that to a vote.Ultimately what that meant is the winner of the presidential election in 2016 would be able to start their administration making maybe the most significant decision you can make during an entire administration.And so there was an awful lot of effort that went into educating this president and surrounding him with people who understood the importance, understood what conservative jurists were available and who could do this job, and urging him to put things like a list together.You'll recall that they put together a list of 10 judges that he would nominate if he were given the opportunity as president of the United States.That is something that gave conservatives great comfort with Donald Trump.
There is few things you can do to concern sort of the conservative thought leaders of the Republican Party more than not understanding the importance of judges, but by putting that list out, Donald Trump confirmed, in the summer of this—after he got the nomination, that he gets it and that he understands that this is an important thing, and these people who I might nominate are people you might nominate, too.
It's clear from everything you read about Leader McConnell that he cares deeply about this, that he cares deeply about who the judges are, that he cares deeply about the direction of the judiciary.It's also clear that Donald Trump understands it's a powerful political issue, going back to—at least going into the summer.But is judges an actual issue for Donald Trump?Is it more—is it a transactional issue for him, as opposed to McConnell?Is it something he understands as a political deal rather than caring about who the judges are?
Donald Trump learned to love the issue of judges.When we started setting records, month over month, about numbers of appellate court judges that were confirmed and the amount of praise that he would get from the grassroots of the Republican Party for putting forward conservative jurists, that was a very effective tool to making Donald Trump more interested in the issue of judges.But I think over time, he also understood the importance of judges because of his own agenda, right?
You remember, early on in his administration, there were a number of things that he tried to do by executive order that were struck down in the courts immediately.So in some ways, this was working hand-in-glove.It was a political opportunity that he was being rewarded for richly by the grassroots of the Republican Party, but there was also a practical reality, which is much of his agenda that wasn't legislative was getting mucked up in the courts.And so the two of those things working together, I think, built a very strong appreciation for the issue of judges pretty early on in the administration.
McConnell’s Relationship with Trump
… There's clear public tension between Leader McConnell and President Trump.At that point, is a different understanding of who he is as a president or who he's going to be as president taking place?Did those first six months change your understanding, change the leader's understanding, of who President Trump is?
The first six months were pretty chaotic.And I don't think any congressional leader had very much of a relationship at all at that point.There was, by comparison, not the kind of hand-in-glove working relationship that you would expect from leaders of a party and a president of their own party.Things had gone sideways on two or three items, and ultimately the failure to repeal Obamacare in the Senate was another one of those hot-button issues.But then shortly thereafter, Charlottesville happened, and anybody who spent any time around Leader McConnell knows that that is not a subject and a topic that he's interested in dismissing and sweeping under the rug.He'll speak out 100 times out of 100.
And so he did at that point, and so did most of his colleagues in the Senate.I think that was, up until post-election 2020, the lowest point of Republicans' relationship with President Trump.August of 2017 was a real bottom-of-the-barrel moment for Republicans.People were trying to figure out where you go from here, how you can work with this president.Is it possible we could squander this historic opportunity?
But everybody sort of took a deep breath.And I recall Leader McConnell meeting with President Trump in the White House after Labor Day, and there was, during August, exchanges back and forth.I remember President Trump was quite active on Twitter against Leader McConnell and others, but they decided at that point that they were going to try to shelve everything that had happened up till then, and they were going to focus on two things.They were going to focus on judges, and they were going to focus on tax reform, and if they could get those things done, if they could make progress during the fall of 2017, they would reset the deck entirely going into 2018 and the midterms, midterm elections.And they did.And they did.
And what was an incredibly difficult working relationship within several weeks became a very productive working relationship, where I think, for the first time, President Trump and Leader McConnell began to respect what each other brought to the table, in terms of accomplishing their mutual goals.So at that point, President Trump began to understand that he couldn't get anything done without Leader McConnell, and I think Leader McConnell understood that the people on the right across this country and working-class people in the center of this country were behind this president in a way that we hadn't seen within the Republican Party in a very long time.
And so there was this political energy attached to President Trump, but there was also the ability to get real things done attached to Leader McConnell that created this partnership in the fall of 2017 that ultimately resulted in a lot of things getting done.
That's an amazing moment.But who reaches out first in that situation?Because Trump, of course, is attacking McConnell.
Yeah, it was President Trump.You recall he sort of reset the decks in his own administration in August of 2020 as well.Steve Bannon and others sort of left.And I think it was Gen. [John] Kelly at that point that was brought in as the new chief of staff, who had a very different view of how the relationship should work.And so the White House reached out and wanted to reestablish a relationship with Leader McConnell.He obviously was going to take that opportunity, because again, there was so much that could get done with a good working relationship.And very quickly we figured out they could get a lot done.
And were those two things—judges, tax reform—were those things that Leader McConnell brought into that meeting?I mean, does he go in with an agenda into a meeting like that and say, "We can move on, but here is what I want," or how does that come to be?
My understanding of the meeting—I wasn't in it.But my understanding of the meeting is that there was nothing that was talked about retrospectively, so anything that had happened in the first eight months of this administration, neither one of them were interested in revisiting it.What they were interested in is where we go from here.And the House was beginning to process this tax reform bill.That was going to be a signature achievement, a signature legislative achievement for this president and the Republican Party, so that obviously stuck out as something that needed to get done.
The second piece, judges were something that McConnell uniquely controlled.And you can say a lot of things about Mitch McConnell; he does not bother himself for a second about things that he can't control.It just doesn't enter into his mind.But things that he can control, he's hyper-focused on, and that was judges.
… Trump sometimes blasting him, McConnell critical on a very important issue, around Charlottesville, as you say, something that he cares deeply about.And I think one of the questions is, because obviously there were others, like Jeff Flake, who do not move on from the Charlottesville moment, do not move on from other things that Donald Trump has been doing.And Leader McConnell decides that he will.What is it that's in his calculations?Why is he different than a Jeff Flake when he's making a decision in that moment about whether to move on and focus on what he can do?
Because McConnell got into public service to make a difference, and wringing your hands and complaining about the reality that you find yourself in doesn't move the ball, right?It doesn't help a single American family.It certainly doesn't reduce their tax burden.It doesn't allow them to live a more freer, fuller life.All of the conservative principles that are the reason that he got into this in the first place are basically not connected to his emotional view of the world.He sees his job as a very important job that doesn't allow for entertaining thoughts and pontifications on the world at large.He's about execution.He's about executing the job, and they had real opportunity at that point in time to execute meaningful change, meaningful conservative change that they had been trying to get done for generations, and so he was going to take that opportunity.
And how hard is it to watch the president, in that period, at open warfare with some of his own members?And how does he navigate that?
Yeah, it's unique.So he defended his members.Always would defend his members, which, again, would create more of a rift.But at that point in time, President Trump began to understand the importance of that relationship.There was no way to get anything done without Leader McConnell.If Leader McConnell asked him to stop attacking someone, he may throw one more jab, but he would ease off the pedal a little bit.There began to be a give-and-take for the first time in their relationship, where he would back-channel and have frequent discussions about what each other were thinking and needed out of the legislative process or nominees or politics at large.
Now there, they could not be two different people, right?I mean, this is President Trump, who operates very much by the gut.His long-term plans are sort of unknown to a lot of people.McConnell is like a machine, right?He's got a plan for what he would do in a certain situation seven years from now, if he found himself in this position and this was surrounded by it, right?So they have different conversations.But at that point, it's a complement to one another.It's not as much of the butting of heads that we saw with the first six, seven months.It was an understanding that this is your world and your responsibilities; this is your world and your responsibilities; let's see if we can mesh this together and see what we can come up with.
The Democratic Response to Trump
From Democrats during that first two years, there's a reaction to Donald Trump.There's talk about "Russiagate," about the dossier, about interference in the election.There's even, early on, there's some talk about impeachment.I was going back and looking at McConnell's speech on Jan. 6, and he talked about Democrats delegitimizing efforts after 2016 as something that had concerned him.Is that what he was talking about?What was going on among Democrats during this period?
You mean just Democrats at large?What were they—
I mean the Democratic response.Is that what he's talking about, when he says that there was an effort to delegitimize the president after 2016?Was he talking about the response to Russia and all of that?
Oh, sure.
Yeah.So if he is, can you explain what that criticism is or what that view of the Democrats' response is?
Yeah, you bet.Well, so, look, I think Republicans like Mitch McConnell were skeptical of the Russia claims all along.There were a few things that just didn't add up, and the idea that you could swing a national election with $100,000 of Facebook ads is pretty laughable to practitioners in the field, particularly ones like McConnell, who had spent his career studying precinct data, right?So he was skeptical.But he was receptive to allowing, once an investigation was started, that to happen unfettered.The Senate Intel Committee did a full investigation.We obviously know the Mueller report.
But at the end of all of this, I think he felt, and many Republicans felt, like it confirmed their suspicions all along, that although they might not know how the whole Russiagate thing started, they know that it started primarily as a justification for Hillary Clinton.And their view was that there was no way, because of the unique nature of this president and his sort of offensive nature to liberal America, that they were ever going to let him live out as a legitimate president.And every single turn that they ever encountered, whether it was the Ukraine issue or almost any policy debate that they had, they treated him as though he was not a real president.
And Russiagate was the permission slip the Democrats gave themselves to treat him that way, right?And that frankly pissed McConnell off.That is something that, within the Republican Party and within the Democratic Party, you'd like to think that institutionalists who have now found this brand new appreciation for transitions of power, would begin to think, well, look, we're really disappointed that this is the situation that we find ourselves in, but he is, after all, the president of the United States.
For much of the Democratic Party, that never happened, and what it communicated to partisan Democrats across the country was the same thing: that this was not a legitimately elected president.It began to create a real tinderbox in this country about partisanship, and ultimately what we saw play out post-election is not very surprising when you see the trajectory that we were on.
… It brings us way up to that first impeachment.What is going on there?What is Leader McConnell's reaction to it?How do you understand the issues that are at play in the Ukraine impeachment?
Thinking back on it, I think most Republicans, Leader McConnell included, thought that transparency was the absolute best disinfectant for the administration.There was a bunch to the story that people didn't quite understand, and producing transcripts of calls that ultimately became the weapon the Democrats used as an impeachment would be the first step in trying to defend himself against what Democrats were claiming was this sort of unconstitutional, sort of extrajudicial way of handling foreign policy in Ukraine.
The transcript wasn't great, but it wasn't impeachable in everybody's view.It was maybe reckless; it was maybe ham-handed in many ways.And nobody knew what else was behind all of that, with Rudy Giuliani or anybody else, but it didn't seem impeachable.And so most Republicans pretty quickly came to the conclusion that this was sort of the next step, that the Mueller investigation had concluded, and so now they needed Russiagate 2.0, and so here we go.We're on the ride for impeachment.
The First Impeachment of Trump
… People like Liz Cheney, who later will be very vehement about the second impeachment, at that point are actually quite critical of the Democrats' approach.And it sort of feels like, you know, in this highly polarized world, it's like, how do these constitutional systems—impeachment—how can they function … if both sides see it as camp?
It worked.Look, a lot of people look back on the four years of the Trump administration and try to point to areas of weakness within the American democracy.I think if you look closely, what you'll find in everything from impeachment to Jan. 6 to accomplishments like judges and taxes, I think what you'll find is the system actually worked, and it worked spectacularly under the most difficult circumstances that we've had in this country in a very long time.
I think impeachment is one of those perfect examples of that.Like that first impeachment, that was not real, right?That was a bunch of uncomfortable conversations.Were they inappropriate?Perhaps.Were they impeachable?Heavens, no.And they knew that.Democrats knew that.They brought a case that wasn't likely to impeach anyone, let alone Donald Trump, to the Senate, and then had a bunch of theatrics about what people weren't doing and who they could call and who they should call, because they knew the outcome wasn't in doubt.It was about prosecuting the next political case in what they saw was an illegitimate president.And impeachment worked in that case.
As we go into 2020, is there more tension?Especially the president's response to COVID.Obviously Leader McConnell sets a different example than the president does in that period.And there's ramping up over George Floyd.Is there more tension than there had been during that 2020 period, going into the election?
Look, the pandemic was a scary time.March of 2020, nobody really knew what we were in for with COVID-19.And for the first time in the Trump presidency, they required emergency action by the House and the Senate.They needed to very quickly get on board with a relief plan that would provide a whole bunch of people who had just been thrown out of their jobs, means of an income.They had to try to save as many businesses as they possibly could.
And so personalities were not an issue here; an action plan was.And everybody went to work fairly quickly on CARES Act, which was ultimately what delivered that first bunch of aid to the American people and may have saved an enormous amount of jobs and enormous part of our economy as a result.But that was all business.That was all business.… There haven't been very many times in the last 20 years where Congress has been in that situation, right?You can say '08 with the financial collapse, after 9/11 perhaps. This was another one of those times.
And somebody like Leader McConnell, who had seen the country through those times, had an action plan in their head on knowing what to do, and they very quickly got to work with the administration to get on the same page, ultimately built, almost unanimous—I think it might have even been unanimous support in the House and the Senate for the package.And so, no, look, the relationship at that point was very strong.
The 2020 Election
And as you're approaching the election, and even before the election, there's talk.And there's also the George Floyd moment and the response to it going on.There's also talk about whether he will accept the election.And he, at one point, you know: "Should the election be delayed?"Were any of those things concerning?Any of the signals that you were seeing over the summer going into the election?
Well, there was one practical concern, which was a bunch of states were ultimately changing how they were going to process their elections.Many of the more responsible states engaged stakeholders on both sides, tried to figure out accommodations, and basically provide the best available bipartisan solution that allowed for people to not have to show up at the polls, right?In Kentucky, with Leader McConnell, that was an example of what you should do.Both parties were pretty comfortable with what they came up with.
But as this was happening, there was also a number of states with partisan legislatures that were basically just opening the floodgates, right?They were having like an all-mail-out ballot to lists that were not clean.They had not been deduped over the years.There were basically just free ballots out in the open, and there was a huge concern about that within the party.Now, our primary concern at the time was that the president was conflating a couple of issues.He was dealing with the very serious issue of potential fraud in the states that had, for the first time, decided to just mail out ballots, right, states like Nevada, with no real accountability on how those ballots came back whatsoever, with mail-out in general, which many Republican states not only did, but did very, very effectively over the years, right?
And so there were many conversations that were had by Leader McConnell with President Trump directly, to try to get him to be more specific in the way he characterized vote by mail, because we felt like, at some point, you're going to dissuade Republican voters from voting altogether.If their only options are voting by mail, and you say it's crooked and fraud-ridden, how are they ultimately going to vote here?And that was a concern throughout the entire summer.
Are you with Leader McConnell on election night?Do you know where he is, how that plays out?
Yeah.We were in Kentucky.We were in Louisville.His own election was that night.And so, you know, he had a spirited race against a challenger who raised $100-plus million, because she was running against Leader McConnell, right?And he had become, in this era, sort of an almost fictional character to the left, in terms of being the bogeyman beyond all bogeymen.And so the grassroots of the Democratic Party funded every opponent he had at this stage in his career to the hilt, and this was no exception. …
Kentucky is basically one of the first states for their polls to close, right?Every Election Day, when CNN and Fox and MSNBC start their broadcasts, the first state that they broadcast from is Kentucky, so it's become sort of a tradition over the years to watch that.He was feeling great about that but very quickly then transitioned to the Senate seats that we had up, to try to make sure that we were hitting performance goals in these others, because, of course, retaining the majority was his primary objective here.
And what is he seeing as he watches that?And can you just walk us through that, up to where it starts to look like Trump is not as strong?We certainly don't know yet.But Arizona is called, and eventually the president walks out.… That night is it still on edge for the Senate, and he's watching the presidency?
Recall things looked really good right away.The initial ballots that came in from an awful lot of these states were very, very positive.Georgia initially looked like David Perdue was going to get over the 50% threshold and avoid a runoff.Susan Collins in Maine, who everyone thought was in grave trouble because of the ranked-choice voting that they have in Maine, had blown the doors off of her opposition.She had won by like record margins.And we were thinking, OK, well, maybe we missed the margin here.Maybe this is actually going to be a lot better night than we had anticipated.
When we started looking down the map, and things were starting to sort of unfold, it looked like we had a candidate [John] James in Michigan, looked to us like there was a real possibility that he could win.And so initially, even up to like midnight, it looked to us like not only could we have the kind of election that we wanted; it could look a lot like 2016 looked, in terms of ultimate Republican turnout.
Now, that began to change as the night wore on.And Arizona was called, which those of us who had done Arizona politics before thought that that was a pretty reckless call.There was a ton of ballots, particularly in Maricopa County, where nobody had any idea what ultimately was there.I mean, we're talking a third of the electorate hadn't weighed in one way or another.You can't model that out when you're talking about a two- or three-point race, and so we felt like that was a very reckless call.
Our Senate candidate was underperforming the president at that point, so we were pretty concerned we were going to lose that race.But it still looked like Trump could sort of cobble things together a little bit.He was still hanging on in Pennsylvania, where Ohio was very safe.Michigan looked like he still had a play there.Nevada was still open for business at some level, much closer than we'd ever anticipated.And … Georgia felt like that was going to be a tight win, basically.And so yeah, there was still hope.It just started fading as some of the mail-in ballots, some of the different procedures that we had implemented, that people had implemented in these states, that people were unfamiliar with, ultimately, because it required two different countings of ballots, began to unfold.
And then in the middle of that, the president walks out to the podium at the White House and says, "Stop the voting.You know, frankly I did win this election."What is it like watching that, as it happens?What is the reaction to that?
I was on my way home at that point in the car, listening to the radio of that, and I was surprised by it.I felt like he could make a pretty robust statement at that point about their capability of winning, because the numbers were there to support it.It was not a stretch to say that he could very well win the election at that point in time when he took the podium.But there was a more defiant tone to it, which I was unfamiliar with, and basically had not been one that you would see from a president or a presidential nominee before.
And was it concerning?I mean, was it concerning to you, to Leader McConnell, to hear that, to hear that tone?
I wasn't with McConnell at that point, so I don't know what his initial reaction was.But look, I think nobody, and I mean nobody, felt like that moment would lead to, ultimately, what we saw over the next eight weeks.Running for office is an emotional experience.Running for the highest office is an incredibly emotional experience.It's why concession speeches and acceptance speeches and nomination speeches are so important to craft ahead of time, because if you just give somebody a microphone at that moment, I don't care what their partisan stripes are, they're going to say some stuff they wish they hadn't.
And I think at that moment, people read that as an emotional response to a long campaign.Where everything had been thrown against this guy for four years, not surprising he's a little defiant on election night.
McConnell’s Approach to Trump’s Election Fraud Claims
… But it starts to go into days after the election that the questions are being raised about it.What is the approach?Is there concern about it at that point, or is there still a "just let it play out" feeling?
Well, not initially.So initially—look, it's not a new process for campaigns at any level to go through the judicial system, through appeals and recounts and all legal available options when you have a tight race.It happens every cycle, and it happens a lot.It's not a unique experience.
And so the view at this point, initially, is, look, this looks like it's probably over, from our perspective.The margins are large enough where it's not triggering automatic recounts in some of these places.It just felt off.It felt like it wasn't going to be able to get to a victorious outcome for President Trump.But he certainly had the opportunity to go through an entire process of finding out what he needed to find out through the judicial system and through the county clerks.And all your legal remedies of an election are very clear, and they're laid out.Everybody knows them.Every Democrat and Republican pursue them each election cycle.And so the thought is, like, look, the process is in place; let them go through the process; we'll see what happens at the end of this.And what we found out is, 67 lawsuits later, that they had zero in their favor, that he had run dry in terms of the case that they were trying to make.
So tell us about Leader McConnell's approach in that period.… How does he approach that situation as it's going on beyond a few days, more and more lawsuits?You've got Rudy Giuliani and the Four Seasons Total Landscaping.You've got the RNC press conference.It's starting to get a little bit crazy.How is he approaching it on the public side, and what is he doing behind the scenes?
Well, externally, it had started to become a clown show.There were, like you mentioned, the Four Seasons lawn service; Rudy Giuliani's press conference at the RNC with Sidney Powell.I mean, there was a lot of concerning stuff at that element.But fundamentally, there was still a disconnection between that, which was definitely a sideshow, and what people were telling congressional leaders at the time, about the president going through this process; that ultimately he was going to recognize the result of this election, but he had to pursue all options and get to the end of this.
Wait.Sorry to interrupt, but who is saying that?This is people in the White House?
Yeah.Yes.Yeah, to congressional leaders.
So yeah, just tell me what they were saying about the president's process, and then I want you to go on.But that seemed important.
There was consistent reassurance that, despite all of this that you see, that the president is going through this process and will recognize the outcome.And look, there was some evidence to suggest that that was correct.There was a big dispute, I think, what is it, GAO [U.S. Government Accountability Office] releases funds for a transition team?And there was a big dispute about whether they were going to do that.And ultimately they released those funds, and that was sort of like a—you know, everybody in the administration pointing to that, saying, like, "Look, just trust the process on this," which is getting harder and harder to do, obviously, with the atmospherics that were going on with these press conferences, with Rudy Giuliani and some of the things that you saw, and court proceedings in Michigan.It was—this was becoming an unserious effort at some level.
And McConnell, in that period, had he made a choice early on: "I'm going to wait until the Electoral College, and I'm going to be public"?What was that decision that he made about not weighing in on it?
Look, he's a systems guy.He believes in the way that the Constitution has set up this process, and he doesn't view it as his responsibility to go outside of what is the way that we transition power in this country.And the way that we transition power in this country is that you process any sort of extra or legal cases, and then you finally get to a point where the Electoral College meets, casts its ballots.And when the Electoral College has come to a conclusion, then you have a president, a new president.
And so his view was, I'm not going to weigh in on the ins and outs of what I think about this court case or his chance of winning or where these ballots are alleged to have come from.I'm going to wait for the official action.It's mandated; it's a constitutional duty.And when that comes to conclusion, when the Electoral College has decided, then I will also recognize that Joe Biden has won this election.
It's been reported in a number of books about things McConnell was doing behind the scenes that there was an outreach through intermediaries to the Biden campaign, eventually a conversation with Bill Barr.Do you know about any of those efforts or about what McConnell was trying to do behind the scenes in this period?
Well, look, he had a number of conversations with Barr, because initially, he was trying to figure out the fact pattern for all of the various claims that the president and his team were making, in terms of missing ballots or fraud, essentially.And he wanted to understand, from Barr's perspective, was any of that real?Could they find anything?Is that right?And they had a lot of conversations in that fall where Barr would consistently say, "We haven't found anything," and then ultimately, "No, it's not."And so yeah, those conversations were fairly prevalent.And I'm trying to think.There could have been other administration officials similarly situated there, too, but I'm having a hard time recalling the specific conversations.
… So as you probably know, Leader McConnell has been criticized for how long he waited before acknowledging Joe Biden.And in one of the things, in the middle of that, Gabriel Sterling from Georgia says on Dec. 1,"Where is the leadership nationally?Like, I'm getting death threats.There's violence."How do you respond to that analysis, to that criticism that says there was a vacuum that allowed misinformation to spread because leaders like Sen. McConnell, Leader McConnell, were not speaking out strongly enough, early enough?
Look, I think the process is in place for a reason, right?The Electoral College is not some conference-room party, where you're celebrating a newfound presidency.It's actually in the Constitution.These are important moments that you have to observe as a leader if you are effectuating your job.Again, I think there's an awful lot of this period of time where people will say, like, "What a crisis for democracy.What a terrible moment for this country."I look at the other side of it.There was all the political pressure in the world to create an absolutely untenable situation that would have destroyed our democracy.And yet the systems that were in place, the Electoral College, ultimately the challenge to all of that, as it processed in the House and the Senate, and where we ultimately inaugurated Joe Biden, to me is an example of how well the American system ultimately worked.
Imagine another country that has that kind of pressure on it, in a democracy, where the people actually have the say.And half those people believe it's not right; half of those people believe that this is not settled correctly.Ultimately we know, because of the systems in place, because of the judicial process, because of the challenges that were rejected, because of the Electoral College and because leaders did their job, we actually had a peaceful transitional process of power.
McConnell’s Break with Trump
So how important was it to Leader McConnell when he finally goes out and says the Electoral College has spoken?Does he recognize the significance of that moment?How does he feel about that?
Yeah, for sure.I mean, look, 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 he knew the significance of McConnell saying it's over means it's over, right?The distinction between someone like Sen. McConnell, who very rarely weighs in on any sort of issue unless it's declarative, you know, his records, he doesn't support a bill unless that bill become law, this is a situation where he's not weighing in until it's over.But when he weighs in, it really is over.
And so they understood that.And I believe Trump tried to call him before he gave that speech, to try to walk him off of the idea of giving a speech.He wouldn't walk off that speech.He was going to deliver it, which he did.And it was recognizing President Joe Biden, congratulating him on his victory and looking forward to working with him.He also recounted all of the successes that the Trump administration had had and discussed the working relationship that he'd had up to that point, which had produced all of those successes.And so it wasn't an antiseptic sort of speech.It was something he knew had some gravity to it and wanted it to meet the moment.
And what was the reaction from the president, after he gives the speech?
He was—he was predictably furious, and he called until he got a hold of McConnell and was very upset about how this had all gone down.You know, McConnell explained his thinking and why he thought it was an important thing to do, and that was it.And that happens to be the last time the two have ever spoke.
So people we've talked about have described two sections of this period, and one of them is the going through the court process to the sort of Electoral College, and then the next is the run-up to Jan. 6.How concerning is what you're seeing, is what Leader McConnell is seeing, as the focus is shifting onto the certification vote on Jan. 6?
Well, there's multiple things happening here, because one part is that, and the rhetoric, and all of that, which it, in many ways, was a sideshow to us, because we also had two runoff elections in Georgia that would definitively determine who controls the United States Senate, right, and if you're in a situation where Joe Biden is the new president, we thought it's just imperative we figure out how to hold the Senate.You could sort of be a hedge against some of the more liberal policies that ultimately you knew that they wanted to try to implement in the first year.And so we were focused entirely on Georgia.
It complicated it a lot that the president's message was, "Don't vote, because it won't count anyway.Don't vote, because it won't count anyway," was basically the message that he was giving voters in Georgia, which was tough, right, because we needed everybody to show up in droves.But it was parallel in this national conversation about election fraud that we were very nervous about, and ultimately with good reason.
… I mean, and inside of this period, there was also this push inside the Senate: Are they going to object, or are they not?We know that House members are going to.And especially Ted Cruz leads an effort to object in the Senate.And it's been reported that Leader McConnell didn't want senators to join in the objection.What was going on there?What was he telling his members?What was the reaction when Cruz decided to join?
Well, remember, there was ample precedent—sort of the activist class in at least the last two elections that Republicans won, the activist class in the Democratic Party challenging the results of the election.1It didn't get a lot of attention.It was a fairly small condensed group of people who did, but that was a process that had been undertaken before.It's ugly.It is—certainly you knew that it had, with the backdrop of the conversation that we were still having, with the president saying that there was voter fraud, you knew that it was a potential tinderbox for having that discussion in the House and the Senate, because no longer were you recognizing results or not; it had become a political argument once again.
And political arguments, in the middle of a tinderbox, tend to get pretty ugly.And McConnell felt as though the results of this election were not in dispute and that it would be a bad—at a minimum, it would be a bad look for members of his party in the Senate to challenge what he viewed was an obvious result.Of course I don't think he anticipated the events of Jan. 6 by any stretch of the imagination.But for those of us who have been in government long enough and been associated with a fair amount of elections, you understand the importance of a concession speech, because your supporters do not want to hear it.
And that's not unique to Donald Trump.That is every single candidate.Republican, Democrat, since the history of this country, they've always had a base of support that does not want to hear that they lost on Election Day, and that carries forward as long as you allow it to.A concession speech in this country has always been a mechanism that you use to try to cool that off, right, and deal with your partisans accepting the reality.But in absence of that, when you're dealing with now the congressional process to recognize that election, you could understand how there would be more danger there.
Jan. 6 and the Aftermath
Just to go to Jan. 6, the speech that he gives, he says, "I've served 36 years in the Senate, and this will be the most important vote I've ever cast."And he talks about a chance for democracy to go into a death spiral.I mean, it's a very powerful speech that he gives.And this is before what happens on Jan. 6.
That's exactly right.I think that speech was an incredibly consequential speech.Had the events not transpired two hours later, that would be the speech that everyone was talking about, associating with Jan. 6, because the political pressure to do the wrong thing was extraordinarily high.And yet the vast majority of Republicans in the Senate were doing the right thing and trying to figure out how you get through this period with protecting core tenets of the transition of power, of our democracy, of the Constitution, is—is a historical moment.You don't get that opportunity an awful lot, which is what McConnell was referring to, in saying it might be the most consequential vote I ever cast.That is not something that happens every 30 years.That comes up generationally, if then, and this was one of those moments.
But how frustrating is it?… Was there tension inside the caucus over this, between him and the members?
Well, not just between him and the—I mean, the members themselves, right.I think that there was—look, the vast majority of Senate Republicans felt as though the members who were objecting were doing so out of pure politics, right?They understood well the results of the election, but they knew that there was immense amount of political currency within the Republican Party to challenge it anyway, because the president, at that point, had a hold of the Republican Party in a way that was incredible.I mean, this was a party that was monolithically supportive of Donald Trump.And so being a Republican who's saying Donald Trump did not win, not a terrific place to be in a democratically elected business.But conversely, it could be hugely advantageous to go along with it, right?So I think an awful lot of Republicans felt like some of their colleagues were doing that.Now, ultimately, some of them who were initially going to do that, after Jan. 6 began to transpire, changed their mind.
We could probably do a whole show about what happened, and I think somebody did, about what happened on Jan. 6.But can you just give me enough of a description to understand how it might have changed Leader McConnell, how it might have changed what he went through, his understanding of that moment?
Yeah.Look.He went into the day knowing that this was going to be perhaps the most consequential day of his tenure.I mean, it was in his speech.He knew, regardless of the violence that ultimately ensued, that this was an important day, and he was well prepared for it.And when he gets really, really well prepared for something, I mean, he's just amazingly focused and has a different level, different gear.
I've always said he performs best under stress, and better under stress than anybody I know.His worst times are when he's under no pressure.His best times are when the pressure is an absolute tinderbox.And this was one of those moments.And there could be no bigger amount of pressure on a Senate Republican leader than leading the opposition to the Republican president's claims that the election were stolen.
So, I mean, this is significant, to say the least.Ultimately, the violence happens.He's incredibly concerned for his staff.Remember, his office is in the Capitol.There's only two Republicans and two Democrats whose offices with all their staff are located exclusively within the Capitol confines, and at that point, you had people coming in through the windows right next to his office.And so he's incredibly concerned about the safety and security of his people.
Now ultimately, I don't know exactly what the sequence of events are.He's whisked off campus with congressional leaders.And at that point, then it becomes, how do you get the country—or how do you get the Capitol back under control?… There are significant conversations here for sure, but the specifics of which I'm a little unfamiliar.The one thing that I am familiar with is they begin telling him that the Capitol complex could perhaps be cleared tonight but will not be available for any sort of proceedings.He finds that totally unacceptable.His view is that if this effort is successful in preventing the Electoral College and actually pushing back in any form or fashion the certification of the presidential election, that the precedent will be impossible to unwind; that you have no choice.Whether even the Capitol stands, you've got to go in and put up a lectern and get it done.And so it becomes his driving force at that point to make sure that everybody understands, "We're going back to work at some point, whether there's people still in there or not."
And you can see that in his speech that he gives when they do come back.What is his attitude towards the president after that?I know he will give a speech.He's going to say that President Trump was practically and morally responsible for what happened on Jan. 6.2There's been reporting, you know, in the [Alexander] Burns and [Jonathan] Martin book that he sort of declared war on Trump and was very much done with him.What was his attitude towards President Trump after Jan. 6 in that period, that week after it happens?
Well, look, I think their personal relationship was over, obviously.I think McConnell meant every word that he said in his speech about the president being morally and practically responsible for Jan. 6.I think he has extremely strong convictions about the events of post-election 2020.I don't think they color his view of the successes that they had over four years.I think he remains incredibly proud of the things that they were able to accomplish in that period.He regrets not a bit of that but is angry, frankly, and continues to be angry about everything post-election that ultimately led to Jan. 6.
But the beauty of Mitch McConnell is that he boxes these things up and sets them on a shelf and moves on.And I think you've seen an awful lot of people who feel similarly to him about those events become transfixed by them.They are more defined by those events than Trump himself in some ways.They can't move off of it.McConnell's great gift is that he is able to constantly keep focus on a northern horizon, where he understands there's more work to do.He always says the next vote is the most important vote.And it's not just a practical reality; it's his vision for everything.You always have to be driving out towards something new, something different.If you're going to repair the Republican Party, if you're going to improve the American democracy, you cannot be focused retrospectively.It is incumbent upon leaders to begin focusing and charting a path towards something new and something better.
That may be the answer to the question of why—and I understand there's also a legal question about—on the vote on impeachment, but one of the questions: Why didn't McConnell seize the moment to vote against Trump, to bring his colleagues along, to finally get him from never running for public office, to drive him out of the Republican Party?What is the answer to that question?
Well, look, the process is not an unimportant piece of this.I mean, impeachment as a tool is primarily used for the removal of a sitting president.And they had, in the period between Jan. 6 and early February, consulted an awful lot of constitutional scholars that had come in and spoken to Republican lunches and made a pretty persuasive case that there's really not much standing here in trying to post facto impeach a president after they had already left office.
And I think that that carried a lot of weight, not only with McConnell, but with many.But McConnell is also a practical observer of politics in many ways.If his goal was to purge Trump from the Republican Party, you certainly can't do that with an impeachment vote.It makes him a martyr, if anything.This is, again, I keep going back to this because I think it's so misunderstood by sort of a coastal elitist thinking that you can sort of pull triggers on what you want a party to look like.Ultimately it's controlled by the 74 million people who voted.Those are the people in a democracy that make a difference.It doesn't matter a lick if your leader decides he wants it to look differently.Those are the people that ultimately have control, and this boat doesn't turn in an instant.It is an ocean liner.It takes a lot of work to go in a different direction gradually over time.Those are the things that McConnell has really excelled at in his career, and I think at this point in time, you're seeing some of those skills put to good use.
So he doesn't see it as his role to say Donald Trump deserves to be in the Republican Party or doesn't deserve to be in the Republican Party, even though he says he's morally and practically responsible for what happened on Jan. 6.
It's just not the way it works for democracy.Now, he goes above and beyond much more than most of his predecessors and, you know, basically any other sort of leader in Congress to try to shape what that future looks like.He takes the very controversial stand of playing in Republican primaries.Leaders just avoid that like the plague.For McConnell, it's the price of doing business.You want to have some impact on what the party looks like.Is a person worthy of carrying the Republican flag?Can they do the job?There's like basic pieces of his philosophy of how you shape the Republican Party he's constantly at work on every day.
Now, it's like a duck on a pond, right, where you just sort of see the top of the duck, and the feet are doing all the work underneath.And nobody's talking about this, but that's the work that he does in regard to try to shape these things.The idea that he just sort of walks out to his balcony and presides over the crowd and tells people what the Republican Party ought to look like is as funny to him as it is to anybody that's watching it.
Is that the answer to the question, you know—there's that famous interaction about the moral redline, and McConnell had the question of why would he give the speech about Jan. 6, and then why would he say he would support Trump if he was the nominee of the Republican Party?Is it the same answer?What's the answer to that question?
I think it's exactly the same thing.He's a lifelong Republican who's spent his career trying to shape not only his party but the country to a center-right perspective.And the idea that somebody with Mitch McConnell's background, believing the things that Mitch McConnell believes in, would support a Democratic nominee for president, is hilarious.I mean, like of course, under no circumstances is he a Democrat or a liberal, which is the alternative to a Republican nominee at that point, right?So I think it's just an observation of the obvious to him.Now, would it be his preference?I mean, probably not, but that's a different question, right?
… But somebody like a Liz Cheney or an Adam Kinzinger or others who have left the Republican Party over this, they say it is an existential threat, and that the existential threat didn't go away, and that the questioning of elections isn't an ancillary issue. It's a central issue, and that's why they're focused on it.… Does he not perceive the threat in the same way?
He certainly understands the danger, but his way of leading in a different direction is in stark contrast.I think, like I said, there are people in the Republican Party who became so transfixed over Jan. 6 that they stopped listening to all of the other problems that the country is confronting.He consistently polls next to nothing in terms of what the voters are ultimately concerned with.And so you have to ask yourself, in a democracy, is my judgment in constantly litigating and relitigating an event in American history, that it is the most important thing, more significant than the judgment of every one of my constituents?
Second, and this is an important corollary: If you want to change it, if you want to change the direction of the Republican Party, if you have an idea of what that future you think should look like, you have to ask yourself, is it a better use of your time browbeating and fundamentally criticizing the 74 million people who cast a ballot for Donald Trump, or is it gradually trying to make change to lead them in a different direction?Because the proclamation that you feel like this is the most important thing in the world ain't cutting it.They still don't buy it, right?So the question is whether or not you can go in and find all of the ties that bind in the unique constituencies that represent the Republican Party and push off in a different direction, more productive direction.And that, I think, is what McConnell's great gift is.
So on one side he's getting some criticism from those who broke from the party.On the other side is President Trump and the people who see themselves as the MAGA world.Some of the people said—you know, somebody told us he broke from MAGA.What is it like for Leader McConnell to now be attacked by the most prominent Republican in the party, to have his supporters see him as a disloyal or a traitor even?What is that position that he's in?
Yeah, he's never been particularly uncomfortable with being disliked, right?I think McConnell has always viewed effectiveness as creating constituencies that really hate him.Now, for almost his entire career, that constituency has been exclusively off the left.It's been a progressive liberal base that hates everything that he does.But the more they hate him, the more convinced he becomes that he's doing a good job, that he's doing what he wants to be doing.This is a man who hangs cartoons just castigating him in his office.You know, the nastiest things you could say about somebody, he hangs them in his office with great pride.And he's thought that he always takes more pride in his enemies than he does his friends.
So his outlook on this thing is different.I'm sure he probably doesn't love the fact that much of the Republican Party is critical of the way that he's handled himself.But he views it as not only incredibly important at the moment but for the future of the party.As for Donald Trump, look, I think he views a lot of that criticism as a badge of honor these days.I really do.He's not regretful for a minute about what they were able to do together.But I think he's seen, as history has sort of unfolded, both the things that they were able to accomplish and then ultimately the end of their relationship. I think he feels pretty comfortable about where he's at with both.
Future of the Republican Party
McConnell is one of the most incredible survivors, when you think about it, in the story, when you look at what's happened in the House—Boehner, Ryan.You've seen leaders come and go, and McConnell has managed to survive this.And now he's in a position where, as you say, he's under attack from the MAGA world, and he's certainly not loved by Democrats.How treacherous a position is he in right now?… He's in a fight to stay in the leadership if they come back to power, or whatever happens after the next election.And if he's not able to do that, what are the stakes of that?I'm thinking about—because obviously, Liz Cheney, her being ejected said something about where the House Caucus was.How important is his survival in where he is right now?
I mean, look, he's been elected leader eight times by acclamation, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.There's a lot of discussion externally about that.There's very little internally.I think his colleagues have largely viewed his stewardship of the party as indispensable to their success.And it's not just having the political wisdom to guide them through; it's having a listening ear and trying to help them succeed as well.And those constituencies are built up over years and, in this case, over decades.
And so, look, the external sort of rocky shoals of politics have an effect on a lot of discussion.Doesn't have a ton to do with what happens inside that chamber, in terms of who leads it.He's about as steady today as I think he's ever been, in terms of who the next leader is, and ultimately, when he chooses, he does not want to be a leader again.I think he doesn't take anything for granted, which is what helps him be as effective as he is.So he goes out and constantly works to try to make sure that his colleagues are getting what they need from his leadership.
But he's also not nervous at all about the position that he finds himself in, because he is, like I said, as strong a position as he's probably ever been since his first election in November of 2007.
But how important is this battle now for where the party will go and for who the candidates will be and how much they embrace the Trump world and how much they embrace the election fraud as a central focus?How important is this moment to the party, and how does he view it?What is he doing?
Well, it's important; it's complex.You've got to remember, Mitch McConnell, if you define MAGA as working class, blue collar, social conservative, largely a forgotten person in today's sort of hierarchical discussion that we have as a country, who's that, if not Mitch McConnell, who had been doing that for 30 years before Donald Trump showed up, right?This is somebody who represents Kentucky.That is the definition of the forgotten person.He understands innately what the coalition is that Donald Trump brought together, because he's been doing it since 1984.
And so it's about not allowing sort of an identification or a bumper sticker to define who you are as a party, but rather the values and the ties that bind different constituencies within the party itself.And that fight is really important.That's the one that you can't lose sight of, right, because whatever cult of personality shows up one day and is gone the next can't define who you are as a political party.What has to define it is what you believe in, what you care about, and what are the policies that you believe will help American families prosper in this country.That is a fight that he's focused on, that I think most Republicans, as you look at 2024 and beyond, believe will define the future of the party much more than the conversation that we're having right now, about will he run or won't he.
And where is that battle?Is it yet to be determined?
Yeah, I think it's playing out everywhere.… The electorate is really dynamic, and the biggest mistake that political prognosticators make, and the biggest mistake that pundits make, is they skate to where the puck is rather than where the puck is going.They [need to] try to take a step back—and trying to figure out where it goes from here, that is the real answer to where the Republican Party goes, and what it believes in and what it looks like.And I think all of the candidates or prospective candidates that you have for president in 2024 or beyond are learning valuable lessons from the electorate in real time about what they care about.The national media wants to discuss Jan. 6 and wants to discuss a whole range of issues that predominantly reside of concern on the East and West Coast of this country.Meanwhile, there's like 80% that are concerned about the economy and inflation.They're concerned about the crisis at the border.They're deeply concerned about crime.You see Hispanic communities... in South Texas, becoming Republicans because they're worried about the safety of their neighborhoods, right, amongst other things.Those are the lessons that, if you're a smart politician within the Republican Party, you are listening to much more than who endorses who and ultimately who is going to run for president.
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