Mitch McConnell hands over the torch
McConnell Steps Down as Senate Minority Leader, Making Way for a New Generation
Perhaps this town was no longer big enough for the both of them.
With former President Donald Trump on the cusp of clinching the 2024 Republican nomination, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced he was stepping down from his post before the end of the year.
“One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter,” McConnell said after indicating this will be his “last term as Republican leader in the Senate.”
No one has ever held the leadership position longer. McConnell was first elected to the Senate when Ronald Reagan was president and plans to serve out his current term, which expires in January 2027. He became Republican leader after the 2006 elections and won nine consecutive elections for the job, most recently beating out Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) in November 2022.
A skilled legislative tactician and canny political operator, McConnell has non-Trump-related reasons to call it quits in November after leading the Senate GOP for 18 years. The Kentucky Republican had a health scare last year, freezing multiple times while talking to reporters and injuring himself in a fall.
McConnell returned to the Capitol with a clean bill of health, but as he recovered from his concussion and rib injury, there were reports of other similar incidents over the past year. He had fractured a shoulder after falling in 2019. “I’m very happy to be back,” McConnell said. “There’s important business for Congress to tackle.” He then deadpanned, “Suffice it to say, this wasn’t the first time that being hardheaded has served me very well.”
A New Generation of Leadership
The seven-term senator also recently turned 82. There have been bipartisan calls for a new generation of political leaders. House Democrats replaced most of their octogenarian leadership team during this Congress, with the last of them, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), set to step down next year. Like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), he will remain in Congress.
President Joe Biden is seeking reelection amid widespread concerns about his age and mental acuity. He will turn 82 shortly after the election. Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who has called for mental competency testing for politicians aged 75 and up, has made an issue of Trump’s age during her GOP primary campaign. The former president will turn 78 in June.
McConnell heeded this sentiment when explaining his decision to surrender the leadership position in a Senate floor speech. “Father Time remains undefeated. I am no longer the young man sitting in the back, hoping colleagues would remember my name,” he said. “It is time for the next generation of leadership.”
But a generational and ideological shift inside the Republican Party, long evident in the House and increasingly on display in the Senate, may have also prompted the change. Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT), Rand Paul (R-KY), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Ted Cruz (R-TX), J.D. Vance (R-OH), and, in recent years, Marco Rubio (R-FL) are among those who favor a more adversarial approach in dealing with Democrats.
Some of them also have adopted a more populist stance on trade, immigration, foreign policy, and the role of free markets than prevailed in McConnell’s Reagan-era GOP. Others are more libertarian or incorporate elements of both strains.
“There’s absolutely a change in the Republican conference,” Cruz told the Washington Examiner last year. “It is getting younger. It is getting, I hope, more conservative. It is getting more responsive to the voters.”
The Texas Republican added, “For a long time, Washington has been out of touch with the voters. I think that was one of the major causes of Donald Trump being elected … the voters were furious with career politicians in Washington and both parties who weren’t listening to them.”
Trump has accelerated many of these trends. In addition to their political and strategic disagreements — Trump has called for junking the filibuster when Republicans control the Senate, McConnell has fought for its preservation — the two men had a personal falling out in the aftermath of the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
The former president has made incendiary comments on social media about McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, who served in his Cabinet. Trump has accused the McConnell family of business ties to China. Chao was born in Taiwan and has lived in the United States since she was 8 years old.
Some of Trump’s biggest accomplishments came when he and McConnell worked together. This includes the Trump tax cuts and a transformation of the federal judiciary, including the current 6-3 Republican-appointed majority on the Supreme Court.
“We wouldn’t have had the Dobbs decision [overturning Roe v. Wade] without those three justices he managed to get through with Mitch McConnell as the majority leader in the Senate he continues to demean,” veteran conservative columnist Cal Thomas, author of A Watchman in the Night, told the Washington Examiner last year.
Those efforts predated Trump. After his Democratic counterpart Harry Reid detonated the “nuclear option” to facilitate the confirmation of then-President Barack Obama’s lower court nominees in 2013, McConnell not too subtly warned him Democrats would regret it.
After the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative icon, McConnell held up Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland for nearly a year. McConnell then went nuclear for Supreme Court nominees to allow Trump to fill the seat with Justice Neil Gorsuch. None of Trump’s three high court picks would have cleared a Senate filibuster. This includes Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who replaced the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Ginsburg enjoyed a similar status to Scalia but on the Left.
McConnell guided Trump through his first Senate impeachment trial. “And Mitch, he stayed there right from the beginning, he never changed,” Trump said at a post-acquittal White House celebration. “And Mitch McConnell, I want to tell you, you did a fantastic job.”
McConnell’s decision not to hold a Senate trial during Trump’s second impeachment while he was in office made that acquittal more likely, easing the former president’s path to another campaign in 2024.
“There is no question former President Trump bears moral responsibility” for Jan. 6, McConnell wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed explaining his reasoning. “His supporters stormed the Capitol because of the unhinged falsehoods he shouted into the world’s largest megaphone.” But he added that there was no reason to follow “a rushed House process with a light-speed Senate sham” in what he described as a “footrace to outrun our loss of jurisdiction” once Trump left office.
Trump could return to the White House in January, which would have made it difficult for McConnell to continue as Senate Republican leader. If Trump wins in November, this might pave the way for McConnell to play a role more similar to that of retiring Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT).
McConnell’s relationship with the sitting Democratic president has already led to frequent clashes with House and Senate Republicans. McConnell voted with Biden on infrastructure and his semiconductors bill. Some Republicans on Capitol Hill felt McConnell got outmaneuvered by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on the Inflation Reduction Act, the second Democrats-only reconciliation bill of Biden’s presidency.
The Kentucky Republican recently left House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) alone to defend his conference’s position on Ukraine aid at a White House meeting. McConnell is a leading supporter of the Ukraine funds.
But the biggest split may have been over immigration, the matter that most often sets the GOP governing class against its base and led most directly to the rise of Trump. House Republicans raged at McConnell as the Senate floated a bipartisan border deal Republicans pronounced dead on arrival.
Immigration has emerged in exit polls as the top issue in this year’s GOP primaries, and the border has been one of the biggest drags on Biden throughout his term. Trump urged congressional Republicans to reject a border deal.
McConnell is arguably the most conservative Senate Republican leader since Robert Taft. Yet he frequently clashed with the grassroots conservatives over initiatives like the above and primaries as he sought to promote Senate candidates he believed were most electable. McConnell also served during a time when the definition of conservatism was evolving and when the Republican electoral coalition was becoming more blue-collar.
This drove down McConnell’s approval ratings across the board and created a Republican leadership vacuum that Trump eventually filled. However, there remain doubts about whether McConnell’s would-be successors can govern more effectively or achieve electoral victories comparable to Reagan’s 49-state landslide in 1984, the year McConnell was first elected to the Senate.
“Somebody said, ‘You know, Mitch is quiet,’” Trump said of McConnell during happier times between the two. “And I said, ‘He’s not quiet. … He doesn’t want people to know him.’”
McConnell sounded a similar note himself. “I still have enough gas in the tank to thoroughly disappoint my critics, and I intend to do so with all the enthusiasm which they have become accustomed,” he quipped.
W. James Antle III is executive editor of the Washington Examiner magazine.
How has Rep. Liz Cheney’s role on the January 6 committee investigating the Capitol riot been received by fellow Republicans?
Olleague, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), against criticism from fellow Republicans for her role on the January 6 committee investigating the Capitol riot.
As McConnell steps down and makes way for a new generation of leadership in the Senate, the question remains: who will take his place? Several individuals have already begun positioning themselves as potential successors, including Sens. John Thune (R-SD), John Barrasso (R-WY), and Roy Blunt (R-MO).
Regardless of who ultimately takes over as Senate Minority Leader, McConnell’s departure marks the end of an era in Republican politics. His long tenure as leader and his strategic maneuvering have left an indelible mark on the party and the country. As a legislative heavyweight, McConnell has shaped the direction of the Republican Party and played a key role in advancing the conservative agenda.
The upcoming transition in Senate leadership reflects the changing landscape of American politics. The rise of a new generation of Republicans, with their own ideas and priorities, signifies a shift in the party’s direction. The GOP is becoming younger, more conservative, and more responsive to the concerns of its base.
It is yet to be seen how this new generation of Republican leaders will navigate the challenges facing the country and the party. The political landscape is constantly evolving, and the GOP must adapt to the changing times in order to remain a relevant and effective force in American politics.
As McConnell takes a step back from his leadership role, he leaves behind a legacy of accomplishment and controversy. His tenure as Senate Minority Leader has been marked by strategic victories, fierce battles, and moments of compromise. Whether one agrees or disagrees with McConnell’s approach, there is no denying his impact on American politics.
As the Republican Party looks towards the future, it must not only grapple with the challenges of a changing political landscape but also find a way to bridge the divide between different factions within the party. The new generation of Republican leaders must navigate this delicate balancing act as they seek to make their mark on American politics.
While McConnell steps down, his influence will continue to be felt in the Senate and the Republican Party. His decision to make way for a new generation of leadership represents a pivotal moment in American politics. It is now up to the next generation to seize the opportunity and shape the future of the Republican Party.
As the political landscape continues to evolve, one thing remains certain: McConnell’s departure marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new chapter in American politics. The stage is set for a new generation of Republican leaders to step up and make their mark, and the country awaits to see what they will bring to the table.
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