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    • McConnell Says Trump Nearly Withdrew Kavanaugh Nomination: 7 Takeaways
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    McConnell Says Trump Nearly Withdrew Kavanaugh Nomination: 7 Takeaways

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    WASHINGTON — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has led his fellow GOP lawmakers through some of the most dramatic moments in modern American politics, including fights over Supreme Court nominees, impeachment proceedings and the role of America on the world stage.

    He has also seen a transformation of the Republican Party under the leadership of former President Donald Trump, with whom he has shared a mutually tense relationship that has sometimes flared up in the public sphere.

    The details of that relationship have remained largely private. But a new book by Michael Tackett, deputy chief of the Associated Press Washington Bureau, “The Price of Power,” details McConnell’s account of his rise to power, his maneuvers to reshape the Supreme Court, and his impressions of Trump .

    It is based on information provided by McConnell about his life, including personal letters, official correspondence and a detailed oral history recorded by McConnell over decades.

    The longtime leader privately described then-President Donald Trump as “stupid and ill-tempered,” “despicable” and a “narcissist” after the 2020 election. He also said that “it’s not just the Democrats who are counting the days” until Trump left office.

    USA TODAY has reached out to Trump’s campaign for comment on this story.

    Here are some key takeaways from the book, which will be released on October 29, just a week before Election Day:

    McConnell turned to authoritarian leaders to influence Trump on Ukraine

    McConnell has frequently clashed with members of his own party over continued U.S. aid to Ukraine, which the Republican leader strongly supports. He ruthlessly – and successfully – advocated sending additional money to the Eastern European country that has been fighting Russia since February 2022.

    Trump has long been skeptical of US aid to Ukraine. But McConnell believed he could convince enough Republicans to join his cause if the former president remained silent on the issue.

    So McConnell sent “Trump-friendly emissaries to ask authoritarian leaders in other countries who had influence over the former president to convince him” to stay out of the debate, Tackett wrote. “Some took trips to Mar-a-Lago.”

    Trump has not campaigned to block these efforts, as he has done for other bills he has opposed since leaving office. The book does not specify which leaders, or whether Trump actually spoke to or was convinced by the foreign officials. The former president remains a critic of additional U.S. aid to Ukraine.

    Trump almost pulled Kavanaugh away

    Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 for an open position on the Supreme Court.

    The confirmation process erupted when psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford alleged that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in high school. McConnell found her “a sympathetic and credible witness,” Tackett wrote.

    So did Trump, who called McConnell and asked whether he should withdraw Kavanaugh’s nomination. McConnell advised him “it’s just rest,” and to watch Kavanaugh defend himself.

    When Kavanaugh was confirmed, Trump rarely praised McConnell as the “greatest leader in history.”

    McConnell rejected Trump 30 years ago

    During McConnell’s first re-election campaign in 1990, then-New York businessman Donald Trump sent the new senator a $1,000 campaign donation.

    Trump’s casino in Atlantic City was struggling and would eventually go bankrupt. McConnell wanted nothing to do with it.

    The pair had never met or spoken before, but McConnell returned the donation along with a note.

    “While I thank you for your contribution, I have noticed several stories in recent weeks about your financial difficulties. Having experienced difficult financial times myself, I know how difficult it can be for a person,” he wrote. “While I am confident you will recover, I have decided to refund my thousand dollar contribution as it appears you may need the money more than I do right now.”

    ‘Space suits’ considered during COVID

    McConnell’s greatest legacy will undoubtedly be the way he successfully maneuvered over the years to confirm conservative legal minds to the U.S. Supreme Court and the rest of the federal judiciary.

    In the book, McConnell describes how seriously he took the threat of the coronavirus pandemic, even skipping a White House event in which Trump announced the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett because of concerns about falling ill.

    But when it came time to approve the nominee, McConnell told his staff that if it took “space suits” for senators to vote safely, so be it.

    They spoke with Anthony Fauci, then director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, about whether NASA had protective gear they could wear. And they secretly built a protective plexiglass tunnel that would technically allow senators to “have their feet on the (Senate) floor” to vote, which was never used.

    McConnell said Trump has done “a number of things” that are potentially impeachable

    House Democrats first impeached Trump in 2019, arguing that he sought foreign interference in the 2020 presidential election. The then-president was accused of pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to help Biden defame in exchange for help, but was acquitted by the Senate in 2020.

    McConnell said at the time that Trump has “done some things that, depending on your point of view, you could say are untouchable,” but added that Democrats have “finally seized on some things that, quite frankly, are pretty weak.” ‘. .”

    The Republican leader subsequently opposed the Democrats’ cause and voted against convicting the president.

    When Trump was impeached for a second time after the Jan. 6 riot, McConnell said he was “not at all conflicted” about whether Trump’s actions that day constituted a criminal offense.

    ‘I think so. “Inciting an insurrection and having people attack the Capitol as a direct result… is about as close to an impeachable offense as you can imagine, with the possible exception that you may be an agent for another country.” McConnell subsequently voted against convicting, expressing concern that it would be a bad precedent to convict someone who was no longer in office.

    Trump was accused in a federal indictment of trying to overturn the 2020 election, but he has not been charged with inciting the Capitol riot.

    McConnell’s words to Republican senators on January 6

    McConnell was upset by Trump’s insistence, without evidence, that he would win the 2020 presidential election.

    When Congress met on Jan. 6, 2021, to oversee the certification of the election results, he was told that a pair of senators — Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Josh Hawley, R-Mo. – would object.

    He wanted to prevent more Republicans from joining them. He told his pre-vote conference, which would be interrupted by a mob of Trump supporters storming the building, that this was his most important moment in his time as a senator. Cruz ultimately decided not to object and tried to convince Hawley to withdraw as well.

    “This is about whether we are going to break this democracy,” McConnell told Republican senators that day. “You’re never going to cast a more important vote than this one.”

    The fall of 2023 was serious

    McConnell, who was then the longest-serving party leader in American history and 81 years old, fell in the bathroom during a dinner in Washington in March 2023.

    Staff reported at the time that McConnell “stumbled” and was treated for a concussion. He was released from hospital with a broken rib.

    But the fall was more significant than previously thought: It was a “violent” fall that left McConnell hitting the ground so hard that he “lost both of his hearing aids and bled from the back of his head,” Tackett wrote. “For a while he also lost consciousness.”

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