Sen. Mitch McConnell told a New York Times reporter he was “exhilarated” that former President Donald Trump damaged his reputation after the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, the Washington Post reports.
McConnell’s comment to journalist Jonathan Martin is included in This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future, a book by Martin and his Times colleague Alexander Burns, which is scheduled for publication next week by Simon & Schuster. The publisher calls the book a “shocking, definitive account of the 2020 election and the first year of the Biden presidency.”
McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who at the time was the Senate majority leader, said Trump “discredited” himself after his supporters stormed the Capitol in protest of the presidential election results.
“He put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger,” McConnell told Martin. “Couldn’t have happened at a better time.”
Last week, Martin and Burns published an adapted excerpt from their book in the Times claiming that both McConnell and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, blamed Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“I’ve had it with this guy,” McCarthy said of Trump, calling his actions on the day of the riot “atrocious and totally wrong.”
“What he did is unacceptable,” McCarthy told Republican leaders in a telephone call. “Nobody can defend that and nobody should defend it.”
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
