McConnell put his authority on the line and also asked his colleagues in the Senate not to perform stunts when Congress meets for a joint session to ratify the election on January 6, hitting the president’s hopes of an 11-hour postponement. was in fact crushed, CNN reported.
So his gracious words on Tuesday may not really be a guide to how the relationship will turn out.
“Today I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden. The President-elect is no stranger to the Senate. He has been committed to public service for years,” said McConnell, who finally recognized a reality set in stone on November 3.
His move, characteristically, came in his own time after weeks that have remained impervious to demands from the Democrats and the media that he recognize Biden’s rightful victory. His indifference to pressure only emphasized his own strength, a fact he seemed to enjoy in his deadpan way. And his intransigence, which exacerbated the president’s undermining attack on democracy, came as a blow to hopes that Biden’s victory will change the attitude of a Republican majority pre-programmed to confuse Democratic presidents.
Still, McConnell’s comments on Tuesday were hugely symbolic, as they effectively put a lid on the Trump era. And his gesture to Biden underscored how he plans to position himself as a counterbalance to the new president – a long-standing sparring partner in the Senate for whom he respects.
But the Kentucky Republican’s move was not without risk. By defying the president, he risks sparking a long-running feud with Trump, who appears to be planning to establish himself as a GOP leader-in-exile after Jan. 20.
McConnell’s hope of retaining his position as Senate majority leader hinges on two Senate roundups in Georgia in January that could catch on whether Trump is able to win over his voters if he isn’t on the ballot.
But at the same time, McConnell also knows he needs to bolster his case that a Republican Senate should be a control of a Democratic president and a House of Representatives, so GOP voters need to show what is happening.
McConnell’s shift in the election came at a time when his signature blockade has enraged Democrats on another topic: the attempt to pass an economic bailout bill to extend unemployment benefits to millions of unemployed Americans. On Tuesday, there were some signs of hope that a cut in the measure could be agreed before the holidays, with things like corporate liability insurance that McConnell backs and direct aid to states he opposes headed to the new Congress and the White House .
McConnell is watching the interests of his caucus
McConnell’s move may have gotten GOP senators tired of being asked to congratulate Biden. But unlike some of his peers, McConnell, who has just won a new six-year term, is shielded from the wrath of vengeful Trump voters with a new primary season on the way. The veteran Kentucky lawmaker may now also feel the whip of conservative media commentators whose business model is deeply invested in Trump’s baseless claims that the election has been stolen and that Biden will be an illegitimate president.
But its long history of Senate plans suggests that its decision would be rooted in a cool assessment of how to achieve its constant goal – to advance the interests of its own caucus and strengthen its own power.
By waiting so long to greet Biden as president-elect after November’s election, McConnell has likely built up the political capital he needs to stop all of the embarrassing attempts by pro-Trump senators to block Biden’s inevitable rise to the presidency. to put.
The majority leader gave the White House a heads-up before going to the Senate on Tuesday to congratulate the president-elect, according to a source familiar with the matter. And McConnell, knowing how the president is enjoying praise, opened his comments by painting Trump’s tenure as a period of rare accomplishments, praising him for delivering on promises of a Covid-19 vaccine, the economy, national security and health care. for veterans.
He sweetened the pill he was about to deliver by noting that “it would take a lot more than one speech to list all the great victories that the Trump administration has helped bring to the American people. . “
But McConnell then went on to utter the words Trump didn’t want to hear.
“Many millions of us had hoped that the presidential election would produce a different outcome. But our government system has processes in place to determine who will be sworn in on January 20,” McConnell said.
After praising Biden, McConnell also acknowledged his current colleague, California Senator Kamala Harris, who will serve alongside the former Delaware senator.
“I also congratulate the vice president, our California colleague, Senator Harris. Aside from our differences, all Americans can be proud that our country has a female vice president for the first time.”
So far, the president has not responded publicly to McConnell’s acceptance of the inevitable that many of Trump’s most vehement Republican supporters in the House leadership have yet to emulate. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, in a briefing apparently called to attack the media, continued the fiction that there may not be a transition, but a “continuation of power” for Trump.
Prior to McConnell’s statement, some Republicans were unwilling to fully admit that it was over for Trump. Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe declined to comment on Monday’s Electoral College vote. And North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer failed to free himself with an incomprehensible hedge from his delicate spot between Trump and reality.
When asked if Biden was elected president, Cramer replied, “ Well, it seems to me that being elected by the Electoral College is a threshold where such a title is probably most appropriate and I assume you say officially if such a thing exists. as official President Elect or something else. “
But Utah Senator Mitt Romney, who could be a key figure in the new Congress and a potential partner for Biden on some issues that don’t offend his strong conservative beliefs, told CNN’s Dana Bash that the president’s supporters in the senate now had an obligation to also accept the result of the election.
“I think Mitch McConnell did exactly what he was supposed to do,” said Romney. But some of those who were really identified as strong Trump supporters, they would really make a difference if they came out and said you know what, we have to get behind the new president-elect. we move on. “
Harris offers olive branch
Following McConnell’s statement, Vice President Harris graciously accepted his congratulations – in a way that seemed intended to open a way for cooperation when Washington gears up after the holidays.
Much will still depend on the races in Georgia, which could give Harris, as President of the Senate, the crucial casting vote in a 50-50 Senate tie if both Democratic candidates were to be victorious.
“I think it’s critical. I applaud Mitch McConnell for speaking to Joe Biden today,” Harris said in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday.
“You know it would have been better if it had been before, but it happened and that’s the most important thing. So let’s move on, let’s move on and where we can find common purpose and common ground, let’s Do that. Let’s make that our priority. “
Many Democrats, who saw McConnell’s hard game to deny President Barack Obama his Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland and who have watched the majority leader relentlessly fill the courts with conservative judges, think that any idea of cooperation nurtured by Biden is fantastic. is.
But during the Obama administration, then Vice President Biden was often given the job of the President to lead negotiations with McConnell. The Kentucky Republican and Obama were not trying to hide their dislikes from each other. McConnell said he respected Biden for understanding the limits of his views and not trying to change his ideology, making compromises easier.
McConnell also wrote endearingly about the president-elect in his autobiography “The Long Game,” poking fun at Biden’s talkative reputation.
“As my father would have said of the vice president if they ever met, if you ask him what time it is, he’ll tell you how to make a watch,” McConnell said.
If that sense of good humor and willingness to look for limited, bipartisan deals survive the first few months of a new presidency that will likely face general Republican opposition, it will be a miracle.
CNN’s Manu Raju contributed to this report.