McConnell called Trump 'stupid,' 'despicable' in private, according to new book

Source: ABC News/AP

October 17, 2024, 5:00 AM


WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitch McConnell said after the 2020 election that then-President Donald Trump was “stupid as well as being ill-tempered," a “despicable human being" and a “narcissist,” according to excerpts from a new biography of the Senate Republican leader that will be released this month.

McConnell made the remarks in private as part of a series of personal oral histories that he made available to Michael Tackett, deputy Washington bureau chief of The Associated Press. Tackett’s book, “The Price of Power,” draws from almost three decades of McConnell’s recorded diaries and from years of interviews with the normally reticent Kentucky Republican.

The animosity between Trump and McConnell is well known — Trump once called McConnell " a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack." But McConnell's private comments are by far his most brutal assessment of the former president and could be seized on by Democrats before the Nov. 5 election. The biography will be released Oct. 29, one week before Election Day that will decide if Trump returns to the White House.

Despite those strong words, McConnell has endorsed Trump’s 2024 run, saying earlier this year “it should come as no surprise” that he would support the Republican party's nominee. He shook Trump’s hand in June when Trump visited GOP senators on Capitol Hill. McConnell, 82, announced this year that he will step aside as Republican leader after the election but stay in the Senate through the end of his term in 2026.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/mcconnell-called-trump-stupid-despicable-private-after-2020-114884151