McConnell has the
chutzpah to complain about Trump’s ‘America First’
Mitch McConnell bears
great responsibility for the return of Trump and his foreign policy.
December
15, 2024 at 7:45 a.m. EST46 minutes ago
Without minimizing the many factors responsible for
reelecting the most unfit presidential candidate in U.S. history, we must not
forget the singular role played in 2021 by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
(R-Kentucky) in preventing then-President Donald Trump’s removal from office in
his second impeachment trial, thereby enabling his return to office. It is
therefore grotesquely hypocritical for McConnell now to bemoan the danger to
the nation posed by the revival of Trump’s “America First” foreign policy.
McConnell recently told the Financial Times: “We’re in a very, very dangerous
world right now, reminiscent of before World War II.” He added, “Even the
slogan is the same: ‘America First.’ That was what they said in the ’30s.” He
continued:
The cost of deterrence
is considerably less than the cost of war. 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. Thanks to Reagan, we know what does work — not
just saying peace through strength, but demonstrating it.
McConnell strongly advocated for U.S. support for
Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, a position starkly at odds with Trump’s
insistence on “ending” the war immediately and scolding the Biden
administration and Ukraine for “escalating” the war.
McConnell’s posturing rings hollow, considering not
only his role in rescuing Trump from conviction after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot
but also his opposition to Trump’s removal in the first impeachment trial, for abusing the office
of the presidency to try to force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to
help his reelection bid. In that impeachment trial, McConnell went so far as to
block the introduction of evidence and disingenuously argue that Trump’s threats to
withhold U.S. aid merely concerned the “timing” of aid.
In the second impeachment, about Trump’s instigation of
the Jan. 6 insurrection, McConnell clearly understood the gravity of Trump’s
betrayal of American democracy. McConnell called Trump’s behavior “a
disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty.” Although he declared that “Trump
is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,”
McConnell did not vote to convict. Had he done otherwise, he quite possibly
would have opened the door for more Republican votes and secured Trump’s removal
and prohibition from returning to office. (If only he had followed the pleas of
Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming to do the right
thing.)
McConnell unquestionably enabled the architect of
“America First” to return to power (even endorsing him in 2024). Now he has the
chutzpah to wring his hands about American isolationism and a possible Russian
triumph in its war of aggression.
McConnell can partially atone for the sin of helping
return a pro-Putin, NATO-averse president to office by — for once — standing up
to Trump. No longer in a leadership position yet still respected by many
members, he can show that his paeans to the Senate’s institutional power amount
to more than words.
Exercising the Senate’s critical advice and consent
power, McConnell can refuse to confirm — and even put a hold on — any nominee
lacking the character, experience and independence to protect U.S. security.
It’s a low bar, and yet many of Trump’s Cabinet picks blatantly fall below that
standard.
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s selection for defense secretary,
lacks any experience managing a bureaucracy even a fraction of the size of the
Pentagon. He possesses no strategic, diplomatic or technical expertise. He has
taken positions wildly at odds with established policies that the military has
recognized are essential (e.g., women in combat, LGBTQ people’s ability to serve), and has been swamped with
allegations about infidelity, sexual assault and alcohol abuse — none of which
would be tolerated among military officers. Surely, McConnell, so deeply concerned
about military preparedness and America’s international leadership, would
oppose such a person in that critical post.
McConnell also must realize having Tulsi Gabbard as
director of national intelligence would be even more dangerous. Going beyond
her lack of experience, she “holds an isolationist worldview, expressing
skepticism about U.S. involvement in Ukraine,” as Yahoo News noted this month, “and declaring
in 2019 that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ‘is not the enemy of the United
States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States.’
McConnell, an old-fashioned hawk, has been steadfast in declaring the Ukrainian
cause a strategic interest to U.S. national security and has condemned Assad as
a brutal ‘butcher who has killed his own people,’ supporting military strikes
to force the dictator’s removal.”
Gabbard’s affinity for “news” from RT, the Kremlin
media mouthpiece, and for defending Russia’s war on Ukraine raises concerns
that she is no more than a Vladimir Putin puppet. (“RT and other Russian
state-controlled news agencies have frequently capitalized on Gabbard’s public
comments … recirculating clips in which she repeats the Kremlin propaganda as
evidence backing the false claims,” ABC News observed this month.) As Reuters reported in November, Gabbard, if
confirmed as DNI, could well trigger “an initial slowdown in
intelligence-sharing when Trump takes office in January that could impact the
‘Five Eyes,’ an intelligence alliance comprising the U.S., Britain, Canada,
Australia and New Zealand.”
No one who takes seriously the obligation to defend
Ukraine and to maintain America’s military edge (including its intelligence
capacity) could support such a Cabinet pick. Certainly, then, McConnell can
figure a way to sink her nomination.
As for Kash Patel, even if McConnell cares not one wit
about the potential weaponization of the justice system against Trump’s
enemies, he must recognize that putting a conspiratorial crackpot in charge of a key
agency responsible for counterterrorism could be devastating to
national security, prompting U.S. allies to discontinue intelligence-sharing
(if Gabbard’s elevation has not already done so). How could McConnell explain a
vote to confirm if the United States, God forbid, later experienced a terrorist
attack?
If, by chance, McConnell wants to avoid the dual
ignominy of being the senator most responsible for risking America’s descent
into authoritarianism and its reversion to a devastating
“America First” foreign policy, he might stiffen his spine, gather some
Republican allies and put country above Trump.
