Mitch McConnell is still throwing jabs at Donald Trump.
“We’re in a very, very dangerous world right now, reminiscent of before World War II,” the longtime Republican Senate leader told the Financial Times. “Even the slogan is the same. ‘America First.’ That was what they said in the ’30s.”
McConnell went on to throw stones at Trump’s isolationist tendencies, comparing them to the “raging” President Howard Taft’s. He also said he believes that the “America First” wing of the Republican Party will do irreversible damage to the U.S. standing on the global stage.
“To most American voters, I think the simple answer is, ‘Let’s stay out of it.’ That was the argument made in the ’30s and that just won’t work,” McConnell said. “Thanks to Reagan, we know what does work—not just saying peace through strength, but demonstrating it.”
The longest-serving Senate leader also pushed back against Trump’s “enemy within” rhetoric, noting that Russia and China are bigger threats than citizens on American soil.
This is another installment in a long-standing feud between McConnell and Trump, as the latter upended the norms and ideals of his party in just a few years. According to a recent biography of him, McConnell privately called Trump “stupid” and a “despicable human being” after the 2020 election. He also stated that Trump was “practically and morally” to blame for the insurrection on January 6, 2021.
That being said, McConnell has fallen in line every time it matters, including when he opposed Trump’s impeachment. He voted for Trump and, in the same FT interview, called his victory a “remarkable comeback.”