Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says he’s been “more friendly” with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in recent years, and it’s not difficult to see why.
Schumer credits McConnell for helping deliver GOP votes for the major bipartisan legislative accomplishments of Joe Biden’s presidency — even the ones McConnell didn’t personally back. And Schumer agrees with the widespread belief in Washington that Ukraine wouldn’t have gotten another aid package from Congress if it wasn’t for McConnell.
But for Schumer, that’s not enough to reorient McConnell’s legacy as the Kentucky Republican is preparing to step down as GOP leader in a few months.
In an interview at the DNC in Chicago, Schumer told us that despite McConnell’s more recent efforts to push back against Donald Trump and his worldview, the longtime Senate Republican leader will be remembered as an enabler of the once-and-potentially-future president.
“[McConnell’s] role in history, in my opinion, will go down poorly,” Schumer said, citing McConnell’s decades-long and ultimately successful push to tilt the Supreme Court to the right. “Not just on Roe, but on issue after issue where they’re so far out of touch with the American people… Even when McConnell thought Trump was wrong, he went along with him too many times.”
OK, so what? It goes without saying that McConnell doesn’t care much what Schumer thinks about what his legacy will be. Don’t forget how bitterly the two men fought during the Trump administration — especially on judicial nominees, which led to change in the institution’s rules.
It’s one that McConnell happens to be proud of — from reshaping the federal judiciary to defeating campaign finance reform efforts and ultimately winning the most recent battle over Ukraine aid.
But McConnell has told us that his “top priority” in the remaining two years of this term will be to push back on his party’s Trump-inspired foreign policy doctrine — one he’s said reminds him of the isolationists who enabled the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Schumer sees this as a “constructive role” for McConnell after leaving the GOP leadership suite.
In Schumer’s judgment, McConnell can “salvage” his legacy in the history books on this front.
“He can salvage some of that reputation — and I’m not trying to tell him what to do — by trying to get the old Republican Party back,” Schumer said. “He will ally with us in not being isolationist. He feels that passionately.”
The “old Republican Party” that Schumer speaks of isn’t coming back, as much as he and McConnell may want it to. But Schumer has a theory that if Trump loses by a significant margin, enough Republicans will realize that Trumpism is a loser politically and the party will realign accordingly.
“If he loses by quite a bit, we may find the old Republican Party and we’ll be able to work with them … I was able to work with them in 2021 and 2022,” Schumer added, a reference to the bipartisan bills on infrastructure and more that become law.
“I know from my Senate experience and my friendship with Senate colleagues that many of them, even if they go along with Trump, don’t like him and don’t think he’s good for their party or what they believe in. Exhibit A is Mitch McConnell,” Schumer said.
— Andrew Desiderio
