McConnell railed against Trump after 2020 election: ‘Despicable human being’

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell slammed former President Donald Trump as “stupid” and “despicable” after the 2020 election, excerpts from an upcoming biography reveal.

Mr. McConnell, Kentucky Republican, and Mr. Trump never had an easy relationship, and now it comes out the senator called him a “despicable human being” who was “stupid as well as being ill-tempered,” according to the excerpts released Thursday by The Associated Press.

The comments were made as part of personal oral histories made over three decades that he gave to Michael Tackett, AP’s deputy Washington bureau chief. “The Price of Power,” Mr. Tackett’s biography about Mr. McConnell, will be released this month.

The comments shared were made before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol when Mr. Trump questioned the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s election win.

Mr. McConnell said Mr. Trump’s behavior “only underscores the good judgment of the American people. They’ve had just enough of the misrepresentations, the outright lies almost on a daily basis, and they fired him.”

The senator added, “It’s not just the Democrats who are counting the days” until Mr. Trump was to leave the White House.

Mr. McConnell said Mr. Trump’s narcissism made losing the 2020 election harder for him and “so his behavior since the election has been even worse, by far, than it was before, because he has no filter now at all.”

In a statement reported by AP on Thursday, Mr. McConnell defended himself by saying, “Whatever I may have said about President Trump pales in comparison to what [Republican Ohio Sen.] J.D. Vance, [Republican South Carolina Sen.] Lindsey Graham and others have said about him, but we are all on the same team now.”

Mr. McConnell and the former president didn’t speak for a long time after the 2020 election. Mr. Trump has called the senator a “dour, sullen and unsmiling political hack.”

Still, Mr. McConnell has endorsed Mr. Trump for president this time. They shook hands in June when the former president stopped by Capitol Hill to visit Republican senators.

The long-time Republican leader, 82, said this year he’ll step down from his leadership position after the election, but finish out his Senate term through 2026.