Mitch McConnell’s secret war on Trump

One name is notably missing from the headlines and coverage swirling around Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Defense. That person is former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.). This doesn’t mean he’s not up to his old games, however. The rapidly weakening Senate resistance to Trump’s pick bears all his hallmarks.

Sure, McConnell (reluctantly) stepped aside from officially leading his party, but that doesn’t mean you can write off the least popular senator in America. While he’s given up the title, he hasn’t relinquished all that much. This January, he’ll run the influential defense appropriations committee as well as the very influential Rules Committee.

You don’t get to be the longest-serving Senate leader without winning most of your fights.

"He’s still very powerful,” one longtime Senate observer told Blaze News. “He's got de jure power, and he’s also got de facto power.”

And he’s far from happy that Trump is coming back to Washington.

A week after Trump won the popular vote, the first time a Republican candidate had done so in 20 years, joining Ronald Reagan 1984 and Richard Nixon 1972 in the pantheon of GOP electoral wins, McConnell bragged that his own unpopularity was a sign of his principled stands — and promised the American Enterprise Institute’s annual gala he’d be a thorn in the side of the incoming Republican administration.

“I now am going to place my focus [on] shoring up American promises [and] combatting the dangerous tendency toward isolationism,” he told the room full of neocons.

“This is how I will spend a great deal of my time.” If you’re not sure, that’s Washington speak for intensifying involvement in Ukraine and the Middle East regardless of the incoming president's foreign policy.

Since then, he’s been quiet — but his Senate loyalists have not. McConnell ally Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) took the lead when she signaled her opposition to Hegseth’s nomination after voting to confirm President Joe Biden’s disastrous nominee, Gen. Lloyd Austin.

Ernst gravely miscalculated the national mood, however, and faced immediate and fierce pushback from Republicans of all stripes, including BlazeTV host Steve Deace, an influential Iowan who threatened a Trump-backed primary if she didn’t change her tune. By the start of the week, Ernst had reversed her public statements on Hegseth and was also eagerly showing her support for other Trump nominees, including Kash Patel for FBI director.

McConnell’s name was noticeably missing from the coverage. The old man kept his peace and let his little helper take the fall. That’s his style, anyway. Remember Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford’s amnesty-and-border deal? That disaster was all McConnell, but when it blew up in Lankford’s face (and was then featured in seemingly every Democrat-leaning ad and debate talking point of the election), McConnell vanished.

Of course, you don’t get to be the longest-serving Senate leader without winning most of your fights. When Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) dared hold up military promotions until the Pentagon ended its illegal pro-abortion policies, McConnell was incensed. But reading the headlines, you might think it was all Ernst, Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Todd Young (R-Ind.), and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) who turned on their colleague to add more generals to the rolls. McConnell is happy to let you think that.

It’s not like he’s simply twisting arms and scaring children, either. McConnell often succeeds with a simple suggestion: “Do you like what you’re seeing here from Trump? ... Do you think Tuberville ought to be ‘risking national security’ over there? ... You should do something about that. Take the lead!”

Fail, and it’s your butt, though. Ernst ended up shaking like a leaf on this last one, and she’ll shake alone until the cold wind blows over. When Lankford’s immigration bill went down, McConnell even joined in voting against it. As “The Departed’s” Frank Costello rasps, “I never gave up anybody who wasn’t going down anyway.”

McConnell may have relinquished the title, but he’s maintained power. More, he’s committed his remaining years to promoting and protecting a foreign policy directly at odds with the incoming administration. It will be a difficult terrain to navigate for the new Senate leader and longtime McConnell loyalist John Thune (R-S.D.), who will have to prove he’s his own man — especially if his old boss decides to burn it all down to resist the returning president.

The election is over, but the battle for who controls D.C. is just beginning.

Punch Bowl: The Hegseth vibe shift

The Hill: McConnell receives medical attention after falling

Sign up for Bedford’s newsletter
Sign up to get Blaze Media senior politics editor Christopher Bedford's newsletter.

IN OTHER NEWS

Introducing Josephine Jeanne Bedford

I’ve been absent the past month, I know, and as much as I truly missed the thrill of the of those post-election weeks, nothing can beat the time at home taking care of my wife, Sarah, and a daughter so tiny I can hold her in the crook of my arm. Thanksgiving (and its leftovers) didn’t hurt, either!

While leaving it all behind for the wee one is tempting, there’s been a fight brewing in Washington since I first arrived more than 20 years ago, and I’m not about to call it a day just as it kicks off. So let me introduce the newest member of our family, Josephine Jeanne Bedford.

And now back to the fray.