Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., may be nearing the end of his political career, but that doesn’t mean he’s done stabbing Republican voters in the back.
During the past few days, the former Senate GOP leader has voted against several of President Donald Trump’s high-profile cabinet picks.
On Wednesday, McConnell was the lone Republican to side with Senate Democrats in opposing Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation as director of National Intelligence. (Gabbard has notably criticized America’s failed foreign interventionism — a starkly different position than McConnell’s unhinged obsession with engulfing the U.S. in overseas forever wars).
Kentucky’s senior senator followed suit on Thursday, again joining Democrats in opposing the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. He also voted against Pete Hegseth’s defense secretary confirmation last month.
These actions would be considered stunning if taken by any GOP senator from a so-called “red state.” But for McConnell, disregarding the wishes of his constituents is just another day that ends in “-y.”
A Record of Betrayal
Throughout his more than 40-year career in Washington, D.C., the 82-year-old senator has regularly prioritized his own special interests and petty political beefs over the needs of those who elected him. Not content with simply defying his voters, he has gone out of his way to push forward “negotiated” legislation that oftentimes advanced Democrat priorities and left conservatives hanging in the wind.
In Summer 2022, McConnell — the then-Senate minority leader — was instrumental in helping Senate Democrats pass a radical gun control package. As my colleague Jordan Boyd reported, the bill included “vague language” about “dating partners” and red flag laws, “which allow law enforcement to temporarily confiscate guns from someone the government deems a danger to the public or themselves” and can “be easily exploited by partisan bureaucrats.”
That same year, he also backed Biden priorities such as a $1 trillion omnibus infrastructure package and the CHIPS Act.
McConnell’s clear disregard for his voters’ interests was also apparent during last year’s congressional session, in which the Kentucky Republican supported numerous bloated spending packages that helped drive up the national debt. He additionally opposed an amendment to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which intel agencies abused to spy on Americans and surveil Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Also recall that it was McConnell who, alongside Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., helped spearhead the infamous 2024 “bipartisan” border bill, which sought to effectively codify the Biden administration’s border invasion into federal law. The legislation also designated $60 billion for Ukraine.
Speaking of Ukraine and its war with Russia, McConnell has been a major proponent of dumping unlimited American dollars into Kyiv with no clear strategy or thought as to how doing so impacts U.S. taxpayers. When he’s not accusing “America First” Republicans wary of getting bogged down in another aimless foreign conflict of “flirt[ing] with isolation[ism] and decline,” the Kentucky senator is busy insulting their intelligence for opposing his interventionist stance.
In remarks to Punchbowl News last year, for example, McConnell said those opposed to his international agenda hold “the dimmest and most shortsighted views of our obligations,” suggesting such a stance “has no place in the United States Senate.”
This exhaustive list doesn’t even include McConnell’s efforts to tank Trump-endorsed GOP Senate candidates in the 2022 midterms, attacking his Republican colleague for protesting the Pentagon’s unlawful abortion policy, or issuing remarks that give credence to Democrats’ dishonest talking points.
Unfit for Office
McConnell’s numerous betrayals are too many to fit into one article — and therein lies the main problem.
McConnell has made it abundantly obvious that his primary goal as a senator is to serve his own interests. He doesn’t care about the Kentuckians who have given him the privilege of serving in Congress for four decades or the tens of millions of other Americans who regularly depend on his vote to protect and advance conservative priorities.
Try as he may to portray himself as a dignified statesman, McConnell’s gamesmanship isn’t fooling anyone. Most Americans see Kentucky’s senior senator for who he really is: a decrepit, bitter establishment crony who’s hellbent on jamming his thumb in the eyes of Trump and GOP voters on his way out the door.
Combined with his apparent mental and physical inability to perform the duties tasked to him by the people of Kentucky, McConnell’s record and destructive antics make him unworthy of holding public office. He is clearly incapable and unwilling to fulfill his duties in a way that reflects the wishes of conservative voters.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
Jesus Christ is King
