McConnell on his previous Trump comments: 'We are all on the same team now'
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has responded to previous comments he reportedly made about former President Trump following the 2020 election, indicating that they are now on the “same team” despite prior tension between the two.
“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,” McConnell said in a statement sent to The Hill on Thursday.
Following the 2020 election, McConnell privately criticized Trump as “stupid,” “ill-tempered” and “a despicable human being,” per a biography of McConnell by Michael Tackett, The Associated Press’s (AP) deputy Washington bureau chief, coming out in late October. The AP reported on excerpts from the biography Thursday.
The Kentucky Republican endorsed the former president in March after publicly clashing with him in recent years.
“It is abundantly clear that former President Trump has earned the requisite support of Republican voters to be our nominee for president of the United States. It should come as no surprise that as nominee, he will have my support,” McConnell said at the time.
The two other Republican figures noted by McConnell in his Thursday statement — Ohio Sen. JD Vance and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham — have had their own harsh criticisms of Trump before coming around to support him later on.
In 2015, Graham took a swipe at Trump, then a GOP presidential primary rival, over comments he had made about prohibiting Muslims from coming into the U.S.
“You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell,” Graham said in an interview at the time.
Vance, who had previously expressed his dislike of Trump by calling him a “cynical a‑‑hole” and “America’s Hitler,” is now his running mate.
The Hill has reached out to Graham’s office, a spokesperson for Vance and the Trump campaign for comment.