Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) issued a scathing rebuke of Donald Trump and the Republican Party under his leadership in an upcoming biography where he referred to the former president as a “sleazeball’ who has damaged the party’s image.
In the biography by Michael Tackett of The Associated Press titled ‘The Price of Power,” McConnell called Trump a “sleazeball,” “narcissist” and “stupid as well as being ill-tempered,” according to excerpts of the book obtained by CNN.
He added that Trump is “not very smart, irascible, nasty, just about every quality you would not want somebody to have.”
McConnell said the Republican presidential nominee has “done a lot of damage to our party’s image and our ability to compete.”
“Trump is appealing to people who haven’t been as successful as other people and providing an excuse for that, that these more successful people have somehow … cheated and you don’t deserve to think of yourself as less successful because things haven’t been fair,” he said.
The outgoing Senate Republican leader also said the “MAGA movement is completely wrong” and that Ronald Reagan “wouldn’t recognize” the party today.
“I think Trump was the biggest factor in changing the Republican Party from what Ronald Reagan viewed and he wouldn’t recognize today,” McConnell said.
In a statement to CNN, McConnell said his comments about Trump are nothing compared to what other Republican lawmakers have said in the past before falling in line.
“Whatever I may have said about President Trump pales in comparison to what JD Vance, Lindsey Graham, and others have said about him, but we are all on the same team now,” he said.
