Krystal and Saagar: Trump GOES NUCLEAR On Mitch McConnell, Opens GOP CIVIL WAR

Good morning, everybody. Happy Wednesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? We do indeed. We've got Breonna Joy Gray on. She's going to talk about Biden's answer on student debt last night. Not a great one from my perspective. We've got Jane Koston on. She's talking about where the Republican Party is headed and specifically looking at their focus on child tax credits. We've got Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman of Pennsylvania on to talk about his Senate campaign. But we wanted to start with the brewing GOP civil war. That's right. So President Trump has broken his silence with a new seven paragraph statement on Mitch McConnell. We need to spend some time here because there's a lot going on. Opens with statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th president of the United States, from his Stand Save America PAC, where he's got millions of dollars that he raised based on Stop the Steal. It opens with the Republican Party can never again be respected or strong with political leaders like Senator Mitch McConnell at the helm. Wow. McConnell's dedication to business as usual, status quo policies, together with his lack of political insight, has rapidly driven him from majority leader to minority leader. And it will only get worse. He continues. And this is interesting. Obviously, he recites many of his stuff. I was sitting president history, 75 million votes. He actually credits himself with putting many Republicans over the edge, even though many of those Republicans won because they actually were able to keep some of those more suburban voters in their coalition. While many of those suburban people actually voted for Biden at the top of the ticket. But there's actually some truth to some of the things that he says here. He says, then came the Georgia disaster where we would have won both Senate seats. But McConnell matched the Democrat offer of two thousand dollar stimulus checks with six hundred. How does that work? It became Democrats principal advertisement and a big winner for them. It was not wrong. Not wrong on that. Not wrong. Indeed. McConnell put himself one of the most unpopular politicians in the United States in advertising. Oh, my God. Did that happen? I'm not even aware. That's hilarious. It's Trump. So you never know. You never know. Yeah. So look, it's not wrong. There's a couple of other different things here. It was a complete election disaster in Georgia. McConnell did nothing. Of course, he repeats some of the stuff about stop the steal. Another one really caught my eye. Likewise, McConnell has no credibility on China because of his family's substantial Chinese business holdings. He does nothing on this tremendous economic and military threat. That is a shot at McConnell's wife, former secretary of transportation under Trump, Elaine Chao. And it is true her family. Yeah, that's a part of it. It is true. But you're the one who put her in your cabinet, by the way. That's what frustrates me the most about this, Bristol, which is, hey, I'm here for it. You probably just politically kneecap McConnell at a level that he hasn't been in a long time. But you hired you hired Elaine Chao, man. Not anybody else. It was you. Same thing whenever it came to McConnell. He got rolled by McConnell on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, on Obamacare, on infrastructure package, on his border. Well, I can go on forever up until the 2018 period. McConnell never did anything that Trump wanted him to do. And Trump, it's not like Trump really fought or did anything about it. Rage tweeted him every once in a while. I think one time he got mad at Mitch for not passing something. And then he was like, Mitch is fighting hard and endorsed him. And he also claims here, Crystal, that McConnell would have lost the primary in Kentucky without him, which is just obviously not ridiculous. Yeah. He also says Mitch is a dour, sullen and unsmiling political hack. And if Republican senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again. Well, that's true, actually. Of course, this is another one of these situations that we're oh so familiar with here where there's no way to cheer for here. Like both of them are like, it's like, well, you know, you kind of wish both of them could lose. And ultimately, that might be what happens, given the fact that they are. I mean, this the way this should be looked at, this really is the beginning of a GOP fracture and civil war. I mean, this is the opening shot. And look, McConnell has certain things going for him, mostly, you know, his intelligence and his understanding of power. Well, also five five years now in the U.S. Senate. He's not going anywhere. Right. Right. Six year term. Yeah. So he's not vulnerable in terms of losing an election. But in terms of taking control of the Republican Party, he really doesn't have a shot at this thing. We're going to show you the numbers here in a minute. But just to refresh your memory, this Trump statement comes in reaction to the play that McConnell made on impeachment, which I really don't understand what he was doing, because, look, if you're going to shoot at the king, you've got to kill the king. Correct. McConnell shot at the king, but then ultimately didn't do anything to try to secure that conviction of Trump to make sure he can't run for office again. He just went out and said, look, he's morally culpable, but then votes to acquit him. Let's refresh our memories about some of the things Senator McConnell had to say. There's no question, none. The president Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president. He also, of course, wrote an op ed in The Wall Street Journal making a similar case, but explaining that the reason he decided to acquit was on the constitutional question of whether he can impeach someone who was out of office, failing to mention he's the one that held this up to guarantee that Trump would be out of office by the time that the trial came around. But honestly, whatever strategy this was made zero sense. Incoherent. It's completely incoherent. You've either got it. There's no walking the middle here. There's no straddling the line here. You're either with Trump all the way or you're against him all the way. And because McConnell said that Trump was morally responsible, that is being taken as a signal. He is against him all the way, but without actually doing what it takes to try to neuter Trump and take away from him the one thing that he really still has, which is the ability to hold over all of their heads, that he might run again in 2024. And by the way, we covered here yesterday, a new poll that came out. We covered that, didn't we? I have it in my radar, too. Anyway, a new poll that just came out that has Trump at 57% in the Republican primary, still dominant in terms of the party. So whatever McConnell has been doing made zero tactical sense. Yeah. I mean, like you said, you come at the king, you best not miss. And he missed completely. And yet it's still coming at the king. So you need to make up your mind, man, because now you're basically dead. And you found this polling. This is amazing. Let's put this up there on the screen. Look at McConnell's net approval rating amongst the GOP, minus 15. And then take a look at Trump's, plus 75. Tell me who in that scenario has more control over the future of the GOP. And as I'm going to talk about in my radar, the biggest problem here is that the party of Mitch McConnell is a loser. He found that out pre-Trump. But the party of Trump, Jess Trump, is also a loser. And so we're going to find that out also really quickly. And I'll give you a preview of exactly what's coming on here. So this is the biggest problem that the GOP faces. And broadly speaking, you have these establishment idiots, people like McConnell and others who want to have their cake and eat it too, and then realize that they are completely out of step with the rest of the party. And people who are vulnerable are beginning to take notice. McConnell is in the most precarious position he's ever been. Lindsey Graham already attacked him on Fox News. Ron Johnson, who's up for re-election, let's put this up there on the screen, in local Wisconsin radio, says, quote, I think he needs to be careful. When the leader of the Senate conference speaks, he has to understand what he reflects on all of us. I didn't appreciate his comments. Let's put it that way. Johnson obviously just holding right on to Trump's leg. He has any chance of getting re-elected, which is going to be a very tough re-election there in Wisconsin if he does run. He said he might not do it. However, all of that being said, he is posturing and showing exactly where you need to be. McConnell has now turned himself almost into a Nancy Pelosi-like figure for progressives on the left in order to attack them, being like, I'm going to go to Washington and stand up against Mitch McConnell, which is his nightmare in terms of the actual people who will be elected in primaries and are going to come to the Senate in 2022 and 2024 if that does happen. That is a very good point. Look, McConnell is not going to win a popularity contest against Donald Trump. Not in the Republican Party, certainly, but even in the nation at large. I mean, he's despised by everybody. His approval rating is extraordinarily low, as we showed you on that graphic, and it's even significantly underwater among Republicans, while, of course, Trump still maintains the support of a vast majority of the Republican Party. So you're not going to win some favorability or popularity contest against Donald Trump. The only thing McConnell really had in his arsenal was the ability to influence the outcome of getting Trump banned from running for office again. That was the tool that he had. And he decided, I think he sort of did a trial balloon to see, floated to the press, floated to the press, to see if he could get people on board. But also we know behind the scenes, he wasn't strong arming people to try to get them to convict. He just put out there this trial balloon, and then ultimately he even decides to vote in favor of acquittal. So the one tool that he potentially had in his toolkit, he's basically squandered. And now it's Trump's party. I mean, this is essentially accepting that if he runs again in 2024, he'll be the GOP nominee. I just don't see any other way around that barring, you know, something really crazy happening, some sort of illness or something of that nature. But as things stand today, if he runs again, he'll be the Republican nominee. So good luck, Mitch, and everybody else. Good luck to the rest of us, too. Yeah. All right. We're going to tell you what's on our radars. That's next.