McConnell has the chutzpah to complain about Trump’s ‘America First’
"Mitch McConnell bears great responsibility for the return of Trump and his foreign policy.
Without minimizing the many factors responsible for reelecting the most unfit presidential candidate in U.S. history, we must not forget the singular role played in 2021 by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) in preventing then-President Donald Trump’s removal from office in his second impeachment trial, thereby enabling his return to office. It is therefore grotesquely hypocritical for McConnell now to bemoan the danger to the nation posed by the revival of Trump’s “America First” foreign policy.
McConnell recently told the Financial Times: “We’re in a very, very dangerous world right now, reminiscent of before World War II.” He added, “Even the slogan is the same: ‘America First.’ That was what they said in the ’30s.” He continued:
The cost of deterrence is considerably less than the cost of war. To most American voters, I think the simple answer is, “Let’s stay out of it.” That was the argument made in the ’30s, and that just won’t work. Thanks to Reagan, we know what does work — not just saying peace through strength, but demonstrating it.
McConnell strongly advocated for U.S. support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, a position starkly at odds with Trump’s insistence on “ending” the war immediately and scolding the Biden administration and Ukraine for “escalating” the war.
McConnell’s posturing rings hollow, considering not only his role in rescuing Trump from conviction after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot but also his opposition to Trump’s removal in the first impeachment trial, for abusing the office of the presidency to try to force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to help his reelection bid. In that impeachment trial, McConnell went so far as to block the introduction of evidence and disingenuously arguethat Trump’s threats to withhold U.S. aid merely concerned the “timing” of aid.
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In the second impeachment, about Trump’s instigation of the Jan. 6 insurrection, McConnell clearly understood the gravity of Trump’s betrayal of American democracy. McConnell called Trump’s behavior “a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty.” Although he declared that “Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” McConnell did not vote to convict. Had he done otherwise, he quite possibly would have opened the door for more Republican votes and secured Trump’s removal and prohibition from returning to office. (If only he had followed the pleas of Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming to do the right thing.)
McConnell unquestionably enabled the architect of “America First” to return to power (even endorsing him in 2024). Now he has the chutzpah to wring his hands about American isolationism and a possible Russian triumph in its war of aggression.
McConnell can partially atone for the sin of helping return a pro-Putin, NATO-averse president to office by — for once — standing up to Trump. No longer in a leadership position yet still respected by many members, he can show that his paeans to the Senate’s institutional power amount to more than words.
Exercising the Senate’s critical advice and consent power, McConnell can refuse to confirm — and even put a hold on — any nominee lacking the character, experience and independence to protect U.S. security. It’s a low bar, and yet many of Trump’s Cabinet picks blatantly fall below that standard.
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s selection for defense secretary, lacks any experience managing a bureaucracy even a fraction of the size of the Pentagon. He possesses no strategic, diplomatic or technical expertise. He has taken positions wildly at odds with established policies that the military has recognized are essential (e.g., women in combat, LGBTQ people’s ability to serve), and has been swamped with allegations about infidelity, sexual assault and alcohol abuse — none of which would be tolerated among military officers.Surely, McConnell, so deeply concerned about military preparedness and America’s international leadership, would oppose such a person in that critical post.
McConnell also must realize having Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence would be even more dangerous. Going beyond her lack of experience, she “holds an isolationist worldview, expressing skepticism about U.S. involvement in Ukraine,” as Yahoo News noted this month, “and declaring in 2019 that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ‘is not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States.’ McConnell, an old-fashioned hawk, has been steadfast in declaring the Ukrainian cause a strategic interest to U.S. national security and has condemned Assad as a brutal ‘butcher who has killed his own people,’ supporting military strikes to force the dictator’s removal.”
Gabbard’s affinity for “news” from RT, the Kremlin media mouthpiece, and for defending Russia’s war on Ukraine raises concerns that she is no more than a Vladimir Putin puppet. (“RT and other Russian state-controlled news agencies have frequently capitalized on Gabbard’s public comments … recirculating clips in which she repeats the Kremlin propaganda as evidence backing the false claims,” ABC News observed this month.) As Reuters reported in November, Gabbard, if confirmed as DNI, could well trigger “an initial slowdown in intelligence-sharing when Trump takes office in January that could impact the ‘Five Eyes,’ an intelligence alliance comprising the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.”
No one who takes seriously the obligation to defend Ukraine and to maintain America’s military edge (including its intelligence capacity) could support such a Cabinet pick. Certainly, then, McConnell can figure a way to sink her nomination.
As for Kash Patel, even if McConnell cares not one wit about the potential weaponization of the justice system against Trump’s enemies, he must recognize that putting a conspiratorial crackpot in charge of a key agency responsible for counterterrorism could be devastating to national security, prompting U.S. allies to discontinue intelligence-sharing (if Gabbard’s elevation has not already done so). How could McConnell explain a vote to confirm if the United States, God forbid, later experienced a terrorist attack?
If, by chance, McConnell wants to avoid the dual ignominy of being the senator most responsible for risking America’s descent into authoritarianism and its reversion to a devastating “America First” foreign policy, he might stiffen his spine, gather some Republican allies and put country above Trump."
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