Mitch McConnell Finally Turns On Trump, Says He “Provoked” Capitol Insurrection

Photo via the Office of Senator Mitch McConnell

January 19, 2021, 12:35 pm

About-to-be Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has officially turned all the way on Donald Trump after years of enabling him, blaming the outgoing president for the attempted coup that took place on January 6. McConnell made these remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday ahead of his getting replaced by Senator Chuck Schumer as majority leader on Wednesday when Trump will finally leave the White House.

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Video footage of his speech is made better with a little theme music played over the end.

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“The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people,” said McConnell. “They tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government, which they did not like.”

McConnell has waited until the very last day of Trump’s presidency to banish all doubt that he is tossing the disgraced man under the bus after four years of stopping legislation from getting a vote on his behalf. Earlier reports claimed that he was “pleased” at the idea of Trump being impeached again because it would make it easier to entirely ban him from the Republican party.

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Still, he has been reluctant to condemn Trump outright for inciting the riot at the Capitol until today. However, his words have not erased the memories we all have of him fanning the flames of the “election fraud” conspiracy theory that brought people to the Capitol in the first place.

If you are printing this uncritically and not prefacing and following it with the empirical fact that McConnell lied about the election as the most powerful Republican in Congress you are giving him exactly what he wants: a professional in the media laundering his own lie https://t.co/wdgNbKtuz4

— Matt Negrin, HOST OF HARDBALL AT 7PM ON MSNBC (@MattNegrin) January 19, 2021

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I’m a goldfish and I’ve got to say, I’m quite impressed by this principled Mitch McConnell fellow!!

— Alexandra Petri (@petridishes) January 19, 2021

It’s yet unclear when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will send the new article of impeachment to the Senate or whether there will be enough Republican defectors to finally convict Trump. Doing so would ban him from running for office in the future and revoke various post-presidential benefits such as his lifetime salary and Secret Service detail.

Schumer, however, followed up on McConnell’s comments by promising that the trial will be happening at some point.

“There will be an impeachment trial in the United States Senate, there will be a vote on convicting the president for high crimes and misdemeanors, and if the president is convicted, there will be a vote on barring him from running again,” he said.

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*First Published: January 19, 2021, 12:35 pm