Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) influence over the Senate Republicans appears dead.
In the past few weeks, McConnell aligned with Democrats and voted against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
WATCH — RFK Jr. Sworn in as Secretary of Health and Human Services:
McConnell was the lone opposing Republican in most of the opposing votes, failing to persuade or cause fellow Republicans to tank President Donald Trump’s nominees who he deemed unqualified and “unworthy.”
“He’s not voting against Bobby,” Trump said Thursday of McConnell’s vote against RFK Jr. “He’s voting against me.”
McConnell finds himself in a strange political situation and perhaps on the brink of political oblivion. As Trump leads the Republican Party toward America First and away from McConnell’s globalist ideology, his aides wheel him around in a wheelchair to vote against a Senate conference that he no longer controls with an iron fist.As the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, following his tenure as the longest-serving Senate party leader in American history, he holds some power in the Republican-controlled Senate but not enough to whip votes against Trump as he once did.
“After 40 years of being a bully in the Senate, McConnell’s final legacy is blocking Trump, confirming Biden, and freezing up when it matters,” one senior House aide told Breitbart News.
WATCH — Bitter Mitch! Trump Stomps McConnell for Voting Against His Nominees:
Under McConnell’s Senate leadership, the national debt rose more than $35 trillion, illegal immigration surged, and real wages for American workers did not grow. Obamacare was enacted in 2010. Congress bailed out big banks in 2008, and social media companies silenced individuals without repercussions. McConnell also has ties to the Chinese government.
“If I didn’t come along, the Republican Party wouldn’t even exist right now,” Trump said of McConnell. “He let the Republican Party go to hell.”
NBC News’s Scott Wong, Sahil Kapur, and Frank Thorp V recognized the shift in McConnell’s diminished power:
Now out of leadership and wrapping up what is likely to be his last term in office, McConnell, 82, is free from the constraints of leadership and the prospect of facing voters again. He has not only voted against a trio of Trump’s high-profile nominees in recent days but also publicly criticized Trump’s tariff plans.
At the same time, McConnell, who is using a wheelchair in recent days after he suffered a fall, has lost much of his influence on a Senate Republican Conference that he once managed with an iron grip as he has grown further out of step with the MAGA movement driving the party.
WATCH — Mitch McConnell Freezes Mid-Speech, Led Away from Podium:
“I think we’ve reached peak YOLO McConnell,” a former McConnell aide told NBC News, putting it kindly.
The octogenarian’s influence also appears diminished by his health. In February, he fell down the stairs outside the Senate chamber, where reporters watched him regain his footing. He also fell in December 2023, continuing a pattern that raised alarms, leaving him with a hurt wrist, bruised hand, and bandages on his finger and face.
The falls were not the most concerning incidents. McConnell twice froze up while speaking to reporters. He was also treated for a concussion that occurred upon falling at a hotel in Washington, DC.
“He’s not equipped mentally. He wasn’t equipped ten years ago mentally, in my opinion,” Trump said.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
