Former President Donald Trump – who himself has come under fire for Republicans’ lackluster performance in the midterm elections — is blaming Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for the party’s apparent failure to flip the chamber’s majority in its favor.
“Mitch McConnell, the Republicans Broken Down Senate Leader, does nothing about this,” Trump wrote on social media Friday night. “He’s too busy spending vast amounts of money on bad Senator Lisa [Murkowski] of Alaska when Kelly [Tshibaka] is FAR better.”
Yet Trump’s own spending choices in this year’s midterm elections have also drawn criticism.
In October, Trump dug into his massive $92 million war chest to send $20 million to an allied super PAC backing his endorsed Senate candidates, Bloomberg News reported — a measly 22% of his accumulated funds.
The ex-president’s cash was used for seven-figure ad buys in Senate races in Georgia, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Arizona — where Trump’s chosen candidate, Blake Masters, lost his bid to defeat Democratic Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly.
His anti-McConnell posts on Truth Social were made shortly after Kelly declared victory.
McConnell, too, has taken heat from fellow Senate Republicans for his election spending choices, after pulling funding from Masters to pump cash into Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s ranked-choice battle against the state GOP’s chosen candidate, Kelly Tshibaka — an intraparty race that could not have affected the Senate balance of power.
Trump also ripped McConnell for refusing to overturn the 2020 presidential election, funding Democratic agenda items, and allowing them to increase the debt ceiling, Fox News reported.
“He is the WORST!” the former president said of the Kentucky Republican leader.
Trump remained silent on his Truth Social account on Saturday as he hosted daughter Tiffany’s wedding at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home.
Word of internal strife in the Trump camp has swirled in recent days, as aides have been pushing him to name Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a running mate, sources told The Post.
The former president has continued pounding his supporters with multiple emails about the Nov. 15 “very big announcement” that could kick off his third straight White House run.
But Trump economic guru Larry Kudlow has joined other close advisers, including former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, in imploring Trump to put the looming Georgia Senate runoff election ahead of his own campaign plans.
“I think it would be terrific if my former boss Donald Trump put his own political plans on hold just until we get through the ‘Herschel First’ operation — that’s December 6th,” Kudlow told Fox Business.