"Trump and McConnell appear bound together. Should the president lose in November, he could bring down Senate Republicans – perhaps even McConnell in Kentucky. Challenger Amy McGrath, a fighter pilot, outraised McConnell in the first three months of this year.
Defeat would be an ignominious end to a divisive career. Kurt Bardella, a former senior adviser for the House oversight committee, said: “History will not look back on Mitch McConnell kindly. He has been the most effective enabler of Donald Trump.
“Everything Trump has inflicted on the American people has been done with the blessing of McConnell. Through this entire coronavirus pandemic, McConnell has displayed he is a soulless person who is willing to let people suffer so he can continue to wield power.”
The Senate majority leader oversaw a huge handout to big business and drew bipartisan ire for suggesting struggling states should go bankrupt
www.theguardian.com
Mitch McConnell could yet pay price for 'tone deaf' coronavirus response
The Senate majority leader oversaw a huge handout to big business and drew bipartisan ire for suggesting struggling states should go bankrupt
It was, New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo observed, “one of the really dumb ideas of all time”. Larry Hogan, his counterpart in Maryland, called it “complete nonsense”. Congressman Pete King of New York said it was the work of the “Marie Antoinette of the Senate”.
Trump adviser: coronavirus relief aid threat to ‘sanctuary cities’ could happen
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It would be an understatement to say Mitch McConnell’s suggestion that state and local governments should declare bankruptcy rather than seek more federal funding went down like a lead balloon. It was a rare instance of the Senate majority leader overplaying his hand.
It also showed that Donald Trump is not the only figure embodying liberal nightmares in the time of coronavirus. When historians contemplate a death toll in the tens of thousands and an economy fallen off a cliff, they will pay close attention to the president’s most important ally.
“I think Mitch McConnell is the guy to be watching and focusing on in terms of what’s going on,” said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “His messaging around the coronavirus has been tone deaf.
“It’s not just the fact that McConnell was remarkably brutal in pairing Americans into red and blue states at a time of national crisis – that is pretty shameless – but I think it was also politically inept because he’s got his colleagues in tough races in blue states.”
McConnell’s role in the pandemic drama has been criticised. On 12 March, just before Trump declared a national emergency, the senator flew back to Kentucky for a celebration for Justin Walker, a young rightwing judge nominated to America’s second highest court. The ill-timed absence was noted. “#WheresMitch?” trended on Twitter.
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