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Republican Party submission to Trump nearly complete: McConnell backs Trump

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After years of enabling him, obliquely criticizing him, barely having contact with him, voting the way he wanted, directly criticizing him, resisting him etc. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has bowed down to presumptive GOP President nominee Donald Trump. He seems to have followed the old invitation: “Join the party.”

Yes there are still many Never Trumpers and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley has dropped out of the race after showing a not-tiny segment of the Republican Party is against Trump.

But the deed is now done. It’s Donald Trump who, more than ever, is the Republican Party’s standard bearer, face, and, apparently soul.

Once again the seemingly impossible highly unlikely not-gonna-happen has…happened. But given his past political history was there really any doubt that McConnell, who announced he’s giving up his Minority Leader status in November, shamelessly fold.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) endorsed Donald Trump for president on Wednesday after years of acrimony between them, cementing Trump’s continued hold on the Republican Party.

“It is abundantly clear that former President Trump has earned the requisite support of Republican voters to be our nominee for President of the United States,” McConnell said in a statement to The Washington Post. “It should come as no surprise that as nominee, he will have my support. During his presidency, we worked together to accomplish great things for the American people including tax reform that supercharged our economy and a generational change of our federal judiciary — most importantly, the Supreme Court. I look forward to the opportunity of switching from playing defense against the terrible policies the Biden administration has pursued to a sustained offense geared towards making a real difference in improving the lives of the American people.”

McConnell — who has announced he will step down from his leadership role in November — is one of the most influential Washington Republicans to back Trump, and the endorsement was a remarkable, if expected, move from the Kentucky Republican. He has held out in recent weeks as other Republicans have lined up to back Trump, including many who wanted a different nominee, and his endorsement means that almost every powerful cog in the Republican apparatus is directly behind the former president.

McConnell declared his endorsement as former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley announced Wednesday morning that she is suspending her campaign, leaving Trump with no remaining major opponents.

And:

Trump needs to unite the Republican Party behind him, and Haley, while losing overwhelmingly to Trump, won 30 or 40 percent of the vote in many states. Many of her supporters are currently unwilling to back the former president, which could cause him problems in the general election, exit polls have shown.

McConnell has privately derided Trump, publicly attacked him for his role in fomenting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and has not spoken with Trump for several years. People close to McConnell privately said after Trump’s presidency that the powerful Kentucky Republican did not plan to speak Trump’s name again.

“There is no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the event of that day,” he said after Jan. 6. He added that Trump “didn’t get away with anything yet” in a speech on the floor of the Senate that explained his decision not to convict Trump on impeachment charges.

Trump has mocked McConnell’s wife as “Coco Chao” because of her Asian American heritage and frequently derided McConnell as the “Broken Down Crow,” or in more pejorative terms. He has told advisers that he wanted to replace McConnell as the leader of Republicans in the Senate if he were elected, but McConnell has already said he will step down. During remarks to donors at his Mar-a-Lago Club in 2021, he infamously called McConnell a “dumb son of a b—-.”

But in recent months, the two men have had a détente of sorts: Trump has not attacked McConnell, and Trump adviser Chris LaCivita and McConnell adviser Josh Holmes have spoken for several months about the possibility of an endorsement, as the New York Times first reported.

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