The powerful Republican Senator Mitch McConnell has sharply criticized the national party organization. She had described the events of January 6 as a “legitimate political dispute” and pilloried those who dissented.
Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell at the press conference February 8 in Washington.
Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader in the US Senate, has fired his party’s governing body, the Republican National Committee (RNC). attacked with unusually clear words. The RNC formally reprimanded Congressmen Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger last week for being the only Republicans on the House Committee on the Capitol Storm. It criticized the behavior of the two members of Congress as “destructive to the House of Representatives, the Republican Party and our republic”. It described the attack by Trump supporters on the Capitol as a “legitimate political statement by ordinary citizens” that would now be pursued by the committee.
Kneeling before Trump
McConnell resolutely opposed this view on Tuesday. Speaking to journalists, the senator said the events of January 6, 2021 were a violent uprising aimed at preventing the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimate election. In addition, it is not the task of the party leadership to pick out individual members and expose them because they may have different views than the majority.
The reprimanded Liz Cheney is the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and has been in the Great Chamber for Wyoming since 2017, Kinzinger is a member of parliament from the state of Illinois. The two had sharply criticized Trump after the storming of the Capitol and also voted for the subsequent impeachment proceedings against Trump. But while many Republicans turned their backs on Trump shortly after January 6, the tide has since shifted. Trump was able to regain his influence in the party. The RNC’s statements last week must be interpreted as a kneel to Trump, who is still very popular with the grassroots.
“We were all there, we saw what happened”
All the more surprising was the clear objection from McConnell, who is generally considered to be rather reserved and calculated his words precisely. But the storming of the Capitol, in which 150 people were injured, several were killed and as a result of which 750 participants were charged, was now apparently going too far for him too, playing it down as a politically legitimate dispute. “We were all there,” he said, “we saw what was happening.”
The Republicans actually wanted to close the chapter on the “Capitol storm” and from then on concentrate entirely on criticizing President Biden. One topic they particularly wanted to focus on is the fentanyl crisis, which is the record number of opioid victims in the United States. But at a press conference on Tuesday, media representatives almost exclusively asked questions about the rift that is now apparently going through the party. For example, MP Elise Stefanik said that while she saw the investigative committee on January 6 as just political theater to punish political opponents, the Republicans clearly condemned the violence that day. It has become even clearer Mitt Romney, the Utah Senator, opposed the RNC’s resolution. “Anything that looks like stupid doesn’t help us,” he said.
Others defended the resolution. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley portrayed the party’s internal critics as a bunch of aloof “Washington Republicans.” “Whatever one thinks about the RNC vote, it reflects the view of most Republican voters,” he said.
Trump is becoming more and more “innocent”
He might even be right about that. The Pew Research Center this week released the Results of a survey, according to which 43 percent of Americans believe Trump bears a great deal of responsibility for the storming of the Capitol. In an investigation a year ago, it was 52 percent. 32 percent think Trump is not at all responsible for the events of January 6th. A year ago it was only 24 percent.
The results were even clearer when only Republicans or Republican-minded Americans were surveyed. Among them, only 10 percent believe Trump bears significant responsibility for the violence. A year ago it was 18 percent. So time is playing into Trump’s hands, he’s becoming more and more “innocent” when it comes to January 6th. This whitewashing can probably not stop McConnell’s statement either.