If Bravo ever decides to bring back The Real Housewives of D.C., they might want to consider making Mitch McConnell an honorary cast member as he seems to live for stirring sh*t up. As Politico reports, ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl’s new book Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show reveals that the then-Senate majority leader—who seemed firmly on board the Trump train throughout his presidency—actively worked to have Donald be disinvited from incoming president Joe Biden’s inauguration.
According to Politico, McConnell’s push to exclude Trump from any of Biden’s inaugural events came in the wake of the January 6th insurrection when, as Karl writes, McConnell “felt he could not give Trump another opportunity to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.”
To add insult to injury, McConnell reportedly wanted the disinvite to be made official with a letter from the four top leaders in Congress, but House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy wasn’t into it. Ultimately, however, it didn’t matter. As McConnell pushed to involve more people in the disinvitation, word made its way to Trump about what was going on, and he wasn’t about to be embarrassed in front of the world. So he beat them to the punch and tweeted (back when he was allowed to do that) that he had no plans to attend the inauguration—or even be around by the time the Bidens arrived at the White House.
As Meridith McGraw writes for Politico:
Karl also reports that in late May, Trump critic Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) texted McConnell to say she believed Senate Republicans made a mistake by blocking the creation of a bipartisan commission to examine Jan. 6. A month later, McConnell called Cheney to say she should move on, and that challenging Trump would only hurt Republicans in the upcoming elections and jeopardize her own reelection campaign.
(Via Politico)