'He can no longer do the job': Trump calls on the GOP to get rid of Mitch McConnell during Fox News town hall at Texas border - then admits he HAS made a decision on 2024 run.... but refuses to reveal what it is
Donald Trump called on Republicans to get rid of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – and revealed he has made up his mind about whether to run for the White house in 2024.
Speaking with Sean Hannity at a Fox News town hall in Edinburg, Texas – near the U.S.-Mexico border – on Wednesday, the former president said, 'Well we need better leadership in the Senate level. You need better leadership. We need someone better than Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell could no longer do the job.'
Trump appeared on the Hannity-hosted town hall after going on a tour of the unfinished border wall with Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Much of his discussion with Hannity revolved around border security and how his plans are changing under President Joe Biden.
Trump blamed Biden and what he called liberal RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) for the recent surge in border crossings. Hannity pointed out how Democrats want to grant amnesty to undocumented immigrants, but claimed that some Republicans want illegal immigration for cheap labor.
Donald Trump recently slammed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell while speaking with Sean Hannity at a Fox News town hall in Edinburg, Texas
Trump called out 'weak Republicans' and said the GOP needed someone better than McConnell
Hannity asked Trump if he made up his mind about running in 2024, to which the former president said, 'yes'
Trump added, 'And you have RINOs. You do have RINOs . . . You don't have any RINOs in this group, but you have RINOs. I call them weak Republicans.
'They walk into the White House, I've been watching it for four weeks now, they walk in, they meet Biden – he doesn't know what the hell is happening – they meet Biden, he's sitting, and they're talking about infrastructure and finally they walk out and they have a deal.
'And the deal is a terrible deal, but it's a deal. And it sort of reminds me of England a long time ago – 'We have a deal! We have a deal!' – You remember the deal they made with Germany?
'Not too good. That didn't work out too well . . . so they have a deal and then Biden cancelled the deal because the radical left said, 'you can't make that deal. That deal's not good. We want to spend $6 trillion.'
Trump was referring to President Joe Biden's infrastructure bill, which Biden revised after liberal Senator Bernie Sanders said he would not support it without a second, $6 trillion measure for 'human' infrastructure.
Perhaps the most celebrated part of the town hall was when Hannity asked Trump about his future plans, to which the audience roared with applause. Hannity then asked the crowd, 'Would you like to see the president run again in 2024?'
Then, to Trump, he said, 'You're not gonna answer, but I have to ask . . . have you made up your mind,'
Once the applause died down, Trump said 'yes,' and the crowd cheered again.
On May 20, Trump said he was 'very strongly considering' running for president again during an interview with the conservative talk show host Joe Pags.
'Everybody wants me to do it, the polls are all saying I have to do it,' Trump said. He added that he would most likely announce his final decision right after the 2022 midterm elections.
If Trump were to run, it would reignite tension between him and McConnell. The two used to work hand in hand, but their relationship came to a halt after McConnell made clear that he would not go along with Trump's attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and asserted that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
'We're debating a step that has neve been taken in American history, whether Congress should overrule the voters and overturn a presidential election,' he said on the Senate floor, after Rep. Paul Gosar and a batch of GOP senators, including Sen. Ted Cruz, objected to Arizona's Electoral College vote count.
'If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side our democracy would enter a death spiral,' he added. 'We'd never see a whole nation accept an election again.'
The divide between Trump and McConnell grew wider in February after the senator voted to acquit Trump of inciting the Capitol riot but then blasted his conduct in an excoriating speech.
Trump and McConnell used to work hand in hand, but their relationship came to a halt after McConnell made clear that he would not go along with Trump's attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election
The divide between Trump and McConnell grew wider in February after the senator voted to acquit Trump of inciting the Capitol riot but then blasted his conduct in an excoriating speech
McConnel said: 'There is no question former President Trump bears moral responsibility. His supporters stormed the Capitol because of the unhinged falsehoods he shouted into the world's largest megaphone. His behavior during and after the chaos was also unconscionable, from attacking Vice President Mike Pence during the riot to praising the criminals after it ended.'
In response, Trump wrote a statement through his Save America PAC that read, 'Mitch is a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack, and if Republican Senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again.' He also also accused McConnell of 'destroying' the GOP and urged the party's senators to end his leadership.
The former president blamed McConnell, whose office sits steps from where a large group of rioters were arrested on January 6, for causing the loss of two GOP Senate seats. Many GOP consultants and some elected officials have blamed Trump's own election overturn effort for costing the party control of the Senate.
'The Republican Party can never again be respected or strong with political 'leaders' like Sen. Mitch McConnell at its helm,' Trump began in a letter with his new stationary as the '45th President of the United States.
'McConnell's dedication to business as usual, status quo policies, together with his lack of political insight, wisdom, skill, and personality, has rapidly driven him from Majority Leader to Minority Leader, and it will only get worse,' he wrote.
'The Democrats and Chuck Schumer play McConnell like a fiddle—they've never had it so good—and they want to keep it that way! We know our America First agenda is a winner, not McConnell's Beltway First agenda or Biden's America Last.'
