In ‘The Price of Power,’ McConnell Says Trump’s MAGA Movement Is ‘Totally Wrong’

For years, GOP leader Mitch McConnell’s distaste for former President Donald Trump has been characterized by calculated reticence, but in a new biography of McConnell scheduled to be published next week, McConnell criticizes the former president in harsh terms, at various points calling Trump “stupid,” “evil.” temperament”, “narcissist” and “despicable person”.

Less than two weeks until Choice McConnell, who served as his party’s leader in the Senate for a record 17 years, says Trump’s MAGA movement “did a lot of damage” to the Republican Party and turned it into the day Trump could return to the White House. into something that former President Ronald Reagan “wouldn’t recognize.”

ABC News obtained an advance copy of “The Price of Power” by Associated Press deputy Washington bureau chief Michael Tackett. The book offers a thorough account of McConnell’s life, beginning with his early illness with polio upcoming departure from leadership after the upcoming elections. His departure from his post at the top of the conference is colored by his split with Trump and the direction he has taken for the party.

“I know I can’t influence the broad Republican Party, but I have influence here and I’m going to use it because I think it’s important for the country and the MAGA movement is completely wrong,” McConnell says in the book.

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“The Price of Power” details McConnell’s growing dissatisfaction with Trump before the 2020 election and in the days that followed.

After the election, McConnell said, “Democrats are not the only ones counting the days” until Trump leaves office and that Trump’s efforts to raise baseless election challenges and allege election fraud “merely underscore the common sense of the American people.” They were fed up with false statements, plain lies almost every day, so they fired him.”

Still, Trump enters November 5 with support from McConnell.

“Whatever I said about President Trump pales in comparison to what J.D. Vance, Lindsey Graham and others have said about him, but we are all on the same team now,” McConnell said in a statement to ABC News.

“Detached from reality”

McConnell called Trump’s behavior after the 2020 election “out of touch with reality.”

“His behavior after the election was increasingly disconnected from reality,” McConnell says in the book, “and it seems to me that he invented this alternative world of events.”

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The book details McConnell’s day on January 6, 2021, including a speech he gave on the Senate floor in which he urged senators not to object to the vote count just before the chamber was evacuated.

McConnell said he believed what Trump did on January 6 constituted an “insurmountable crime.”

“I have no doubt at all that what the president did is an impeachable crime. I think so. Incitement of insurrection and the direct result of people attacking the Capitol… is as close to an insurmountable crime as it gets. imagine, with the possible exception of being an agent of another country.”

On February 13, 2021, McConnell gave a speech in which he blamed the insurrection on Trump.

“They did it because the most powerful man on Earth fed them wild lies because he was evil. He lost the election. “Former President Trump’s actions leading up to the riot were a shameful dereliction of duty…There is no doubt, no, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” he said on the floor that day.

Still, McConnell ultimately voted against impeachment. And later, when the Republican Party chose Trump as their 2024 candidate, he endorsed him too.

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Political calculation

It was McConnell’s political calculation that set him apart from some of Trump’s more ardent opponents, such as Republican Liz Cheney, who lost the primary largely because she dared to challenge Trump.

“The difference with Liz is that I didn’t see how blowing yourself up and getting off the field helped get the party back to where she and I probably both think it should be,” McConnell told Tackett, later adding, “I think that her kind of dedication might sell books but would have no effect on changing the party. And that’s where we differed.”

Even before the 2020 election, McConnell’s relationship with Trump was rocky.

As Trump began to gain prominence as a potential candidate in 2016, McConnell hailed him as “that most extraordinary candidate.”

“Because I had candidates in different states who dealt with the Trump factor in different ways, I tried to keep my mouth shut because I didn’t want to become the talking point in a given Senate race,” McConnell told his oral historian. According to the book, soon after the elections.

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The book details the behind-the-scenes relationship between McConnell and then-House Speaker Paul Ryan, who said they took turns talking to Trump. Ryan described Trump as an “amoral narcissist” in his book.

“Every day, every week, every month, we were just more surprised by how twisted he was, how erratic and strange he was,” Ryan says in the book. “He shot messengers, and Mitch and I were always messengers. We always had to explain to him the practical limitations of government. He never liked hearing it.”

McConnell has been critical of a number of Trump’s moves, including his decision to interfere in the 2017 Alabama special election won by Republican Roy Moore defeated by Democrat Doug Jones.

“I have instructed Trump to stay out of this,” McConnell said. Instead, “Trump got into the thick of it and tried to get Moore elected, and quite amazingly, Alabama elected a Democrat to the Senate.” Said McConnell: “I’m glad the Democrat won.”

He said Trump’s decision to fire his then-FBI director James Comey was another mistake.

“His own actions have put him in danger and I’m sure his lawyers are probably going crazy because he won’t shut up about it. It is completely uncontrolled,” McConnell said.

Yet in the run-up to the 2020 election, McConnell still showed up at a rally with Trump in Kentucky. He thanked him for “making America great again.”

The speech mainly focused on the impact that Trump and McConnell have had together on the federal courts.

In ‘The Price of Power,’ McConnell Says Trump’s MAGA Movement Is ‘Totally Wrong’ originally appeared abcnews.go.com