What happened

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was fighting to hold on to his Cabinet position this week after reports that he used a second Signal chat—which included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer— last month to discuss detailed plans for a U.S. military strike on rebel camps in Yemen. The New York Times reported that Hegseth, a former Fox News host, had created chaos "unmatched in the recent history" of the Pentagon, and that after he fired three top aides last week and accused them of leaking to the press, his circle of advisers "is in shambles." A fourth recently departed aide, former Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot, said in a Politico column that the Defense Department is "in a full-blown meltdown" under Hegseth's leadership and that "it's hard to see" him retaining his post. NPR reported that the Trump administration has begun a search for Hegseth's replacement.

President Trump said Hegseth "is doing a great job" and denied seeking to replace him. Hegseth maintains the information he shared about the Yemen strikes on two Signal chats—the first with a journalist mistakenly included—was "informal" and not classified. But NBC News reported that the plans Hegseth detailed came directly from a general using a secure government system. The inclusion of Hegseth's wife—a former Fox producer with no military background—in the chat has raised questions about her frequent presence in Hegseth's official meetings. While some Republicans are standing by Hegseth, GOP Rep. Don Bacon called him "an amateur" and said he was acting "like he's above the law."

What the columnists said

Hegseth is blaming the media and "former disgruntled employees" for his troubles, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial, but the press "didn't make up the staff turmoil, or the embarrassing Signal chat." The "infighting, dismissals, and leaks" look like "the self-inflicted mistakes of a management neophyte." Hegseth vowed to be a disruptor of the status quo at the Pentagon, but, as Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell warned when he voted against Hegseth's confirmation, that's not a "sufficient credential" to be put in charge of America's defense and 3.4 million military and civilian employees. If he wants to keep his job, he needs to bring in competent, experienced staff.

Actually, "it's time for Hegseth to go," said Max Boot in The Washington Post. He's "in way over his head," and is "undermining the military's effectiveness." A lower-level employee would have been fired, if not criminally charged, for "such flagrant misbehavior" as boasting about an imminent U.S. attack via a commercial app on his personal phone. Time to hand the job "to someone who has the right experience and qualifications to lead one of the world's largest and most complex organizations."

Trump doesn't want to sack Hegseth because he thinks it "will only encourage and empower the press," said David A. Graham in The Atlantic. But that's a "dangerous game to play with national security." If Trump won't take a "political loss now, what kind of geopolitical loss does he risk later?"

"No longer in charge, Sen. Mitch McConnell is speaking his mind," said Lisa Mascaro in the Associated Press. Now in his seventh and final term, the 83-year-old former Senate Republican leader has opposed President Donald Trump's most controversial Cabinet nominees — "alone."

Last week, McConnell was the sole GOP senator to vote against confirming Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, calling them unqualified and extreme. He also voted "no" on Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary. That's because McConnell is an actual conservative, not a Trumpist, said Jay Nordlinger in National Review. He "tells the truth" about the Jan. 6. insurrection and the 2020 election results, fully supports Ukraine, and opposes Trump's tariffs as a tax on Americans. A furious Trump called McConnell a "loser" and "failure" for voting against Gabbard and Kennedy, both of whom used to be "despised" by Republicans. "So who changed? The Republicans or McConnell? Not McConnell."

Too bad he is "totally irrelevant," said Ed Kilgore in New York magazine. Even if McConnell hadn't voluntarily stepped down as his party's leader in November due to ill health, he would have been deposed by the now-dominant MAGA Republicans, who have yet to forgive him for publicly blaming Trump for the Jan. 6 riot. But for years, McConnell was an über-partisan who delivered on Trump's priorities, "whipping his troops into partisan uniformity" on tax cuts, delivering a "steady flow of easy confirmations" of executive and judicial appointments, and "relentlessly" opposing Joe Biden's agenda. McConnell's recent gestures of independence and integrity "are far too little and way too late."

In fact, McConnell "is the reason Trump is back in power," said Joan Walsh in The Nation. McConnell failed to vote to convict Trump after the House impeached him for his attempted coup in 2021. If the then–Senate majority leader had whipped colleagues to convict, they could have legally barred Trump from running again. Earlier, McConnell led a "judicial coup" — blocking President Obama's Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland, and then enabled Trump to confirm three conservative justices. Those justices went on to grant Trump broad immunity from prosecution for his failed insurrection.

Obviously, McConnell is now "trying to atone" for his past sins, said Joseph Gerth in the Louisville Courier-Journal. But by casting some meaningless "no" votes, McConnell is "never going to fix what he's broken."

What happened

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Thursday he will not seek an eighth term in 2026, ending more than 40 years in the Senate, including the longest tenure for a Senate party leader in U.S. history. He announced his coming retirement from the Senate floor on his 83rd birthday.

Who said what

McConnell is ending his "decadeslong tenure as a power broker" and conservative "master strategist" having "ultimately ceded ground to the fierce GOP populism" of President Donald Trump's MAGA movement, said The Associated Press. His announcement "did not come as a major surprise" to many in Washington or Kentucky, said Politico.

Since stepping down from leadership last year, McConnell has "distinguished himself" as one of the few GOP lawmakers "willing to challenge" Trump, said ABC News. He seemingly made light of that role Thursday. "These are the new moderates," he quipped with an arm around fellow Republicans Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), the "first to embrace him" following his announcement, said the Louisville Courier-Journal. The trio are "among the few" in their party "willing to speak out" about Trump's "early executive actions" and the "only three Republicans" to vote against any of his cabinet nominees.

What next?

Several Republicans have already expressed interest in seeking McConnell's seat, including Rep. Andy Barr (R) and former state Attorney General Daniel Cameron. Gov. Andy Beshear (D) has said he is not interested in running for Senate.

What happened

The Senate Wednesday confirmed Tulsi Gabbard, the controversial former Democratic lawmaker who became an ardent Donald Trump supporter, as director of national intelligence in a 52-48 vote. Only one Republican, Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), joined the Democrats in voting against her. She was sworn in Wednesday afternoon in the Oval Office.

Who said what

Gabbard, 43, was confirmed despite "concerns among some GOP senators over her qualifications, her past favorable comments about foreign leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin and her refusal to firmly condemn" NSA leaker Edward Snowden, The Wall Street Journal said. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said if the Senate had voted by secret ballot, Gabbard "would get no more than 10 votes."

McConnell — "one of the last sitting GOP lawmakers who has exhibited a willingness to buck Trump," The Washington Post said — called it an "unnecessary risk" to confirm as DNI someone with Gabbard's history of "alarming lapses in judgment." At her swearing-in, Trump said she was a "courageous and often lonely voice" who would be "clear-eyed" and "focused on the threat of radical Islamic terrorism and lots of other threats too, threats from within."

What next?

Gabbard will oversee the 18 U.S. intelligence agencies and set "broad goals for collecting intelligence," but there are limits to her "power and influence," The New York Times said. Her "most important job, arguably," is overseeing the president's daily intelligence briefing, and Trump will now have "someone aligned with his foreign policy views supervising those updates."

The Senate will look different in 2025. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has led the chamber's Republicans for nearly a generation. Now he's stepping down from leadership after a record-setting run — and leaving a divisive legacy that will be debated for years to come.

McConnell used his power to "shift the country to the right during his 17-year tenure" as leader, Alex Rogers said at Financial Times. He blocked Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court during Barack Obama's presidency, paving the way for conservatives to cement a 6-3 supermajority on the court that ultimately overturned Roe v. Wade. He also pulled back from voting on Donald Trump's impeachment after the Jan. 6 attack. That's "characteristic" of McConnell's politics, Rogers said. "He prizes GOP power above almost all other considerations."

Preferring 'pragmatic Reaganism'

His is a "lamentable legacy," Cornell University's Glenn C. Altschuler said at The Hill. As GOP leader, McConnell was a key figure in passing bipartisan legislation, including bank bailouts during the Great Recession, military aid to Ukraine and Joe Biden's infrastructure bill. But McConnell also did "considerable damage to democratic norms, practices and institutions" in Washington — notably helping clear the way for massive campaign spending by billionaires and special interests. McConnell's refusal to endorse Trump's impeachment, though, stands alone as a "catastrophic miscalculation," Altschuler said.

McConnell's legacy is "pleasing to conservatives," Kevin R. Kosar said at The Washington Examiner. But the GOP leader "struggled with the rise of populism in his party," preferring "pragmatic Reaganism" instead. He never liked Trump, and the feeling was mutual. That dislike came to a head during the Jan. 6 insurrection, as the Capitol attack "appalled McConnell," Kosar said. But McConnell ultimately felt he couldn't break with "Trump's millions of fervid supporters" and refused to join the impeachment. McConnell "hoped Trump would fade away." That didn't happen.

"In some ways, McConnell's political career is impressive," Malcom Kyeyune said at UnHerd. He is the longest-serving party leader in Senate history, after all. But he remains unpopular with Americans broadly, and his own party seems to have moved on. The bigger problem is that McConnell's generation of politicians — including Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden — "essentially calcified American politics," holding onto power long past the moment when it was time to move on. That helped make the system "immune to reform," Kyeyune said. The result is a "broken Senate."

'Ready to pick fights'

McConnell will remain in the Senate even though he's leaving leadership. He is "ready to pick his own fights," said The New York Times — and perhaps even more ready to scrap with Trump. McConnell said he is "liberated" from having to keep GOP senators together, and can now strike out on his own more often. He seems particularly inclined to combat Trump's willingness to pull America back from NATO and the defense of Ukraine. "America's national security interests face the gravest array of threats since the Second World War," McConnell said in a recent speech.

His colleagues expect McConnell to play a compelling role going forward. "He'll always be having a role of sage," said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.). "And he won't do it passively — he will pick a few things."

'Democrats should reclaim patriotism'

Mona Charen at The Bulwark

Republicans scored points with "middle-of-the-road voters" for decades by accusing Democrats of "anti-Americanism," says Mona Charen. "Today, it is the Republican party that — despite its MAGA slogan — is trafficking in dark, anti-American ideas and imagery," claiming to "put 'America first'" while applauding a leader, former President Donald Trump, who describes the nation as a "failing," "crime-infested hellscape." This presents Democrats with an opportunity "to scoop up the banner of patriotism" by praising what's right with America.

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'Kudos to Mitch McConnell's final public service — confronting the isolationist right'

Isaac Schorr in the New York Post

"Mitch McConnell has spent his 17 years as Republicans' leader in the Senate frustrating — even tormenting — his Democratic counterparts," says Isaac Schorr. But as the Kentucky Republican "finishes his final year as leader," his "focus has shifted" to confronting what he calls "the advocates of a more laissez-faire American foreign policy," including "the isolationist movement" of his party. His final public service will be projecting the "moral clarity" younger peers lack on the need to "beat Russia."

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'What Americans lost when they stopped going to church'

Derek Thompson in The Atlantic

About 40 million Americans "stopped going to church in the past 25 years," says Derek Thompson. The nation now has "the highest level of non-religiosity" ever in a Public Religion Research Institute poll. With organized religion seemingly "beset by scandal and entangled in noxious politics," agnostics might ask, "what is there really to mourn?" The answer is that many people, "having lost the scaffolding of organized religion," have "found no alternative method to build a sense of community."  

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'Havana syndrome might have been a Russian attack. The U.S. can't stop investigating.'

The Washington Post editorial board

U.S. intelligence assessments concluded the mysterious health problems diplomats have suffered in Cuba and elsewhere were probably not linked to a foreign adversary, but "there are compelling reasons to dig deeper," says The Washington Post editorial board. An investigation by Russian, American and German journalists that was just released indicated Moscow's military intelligence service was "the possible culprit." If so-called Havana syndrome was "a deliberate attack, the perpetrator must be identified and held to account."

Read more

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) might be the most powerful and consequential Senate leader in memory, Republican or Democrat. The Kentucky Republican gave conservatives a supermajority on the Supreme Court. He saved Donald Trump from two impeachments. And he's held the post longer than anybody else.

But it sure looks like his power over Senate Republicans is faltering.

McConnell is facing "one of the toughest challenges of his career this week," The Hill said, trying to gather votes for a bill that will both replenish funding for Ukraine and crack down on immigration. But that proposal has little support from his party. And McConnell may be forced to "abandon" the effort if he can't muster even 10 votes to help Democrats override the inevitable filibuster. "It's certainly been a challenge," he told reporters. 

Indeed, McClatchy said, right-wing Republicans are increasingly criticizing McConnell for being too willing to make deals with Democrats. "The problem is almost always Mitch McConnell," said Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation. McConnell's biggest challenge, though, is probably Trump himself. The former president "is propelling that rebellion" against the border deal, Politico said. The two men hardly love each other: McConnell "essentially disowned" Trump after Jan. 6, and the former president "has responded with regular attacks" on McConnell. 

What did the commentators say?

"It can be argued that McConnell is in a fix of his own making because he didn't push to try, convict and disqualify Trump for Jan. 6," Al Cross argued at Kentucky Lantern in McConnell's home state. Trump is now pushing against the immigration bill because he wants to run for president on the border issue. That means "some Republicans don't want to take yes for an answer." Now the future of Ukraine is at stake, and so is "the standing of the United States in the world." But those aren't the only issues hanging in the balance: So, too, is "how history will remember Mitch McConnell."

McConnell "is being forced to reckon with former President Donald Trump's hold on the GOP," Emily Jacobs added at the Washington Examiner. Supporting Trump's impeachment after Jan. 6 would have been a "political suicide mission," one political strategist told Jacobs, "the equivalent of getting a small dog to jump over Niagara Falls." But McConnell also believed that Trump had fatally wounded his political career after the insurrection. Said another observer: "Obviously, in hindsight, it was a miscalculation."

"McConnell's vaunted political acumen has failed him at critical times" since Trump took over the GOP, John David Dyche, a McConnell biographer, wrote at the Lexington Herald-Leader. McConnell did castigate Trump after Jan. 6, saying the former president's actions were "a disgraceful dereliction of duty." But he failed to press the impeachment, and now he's living with the results of a Trumpified GOP. "When the time for a McConnell obituary comes, that will be his legacy."

What next?

McConnell might actually have more support from his rival, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), than from his fellow Republicans. Both men have been trying to get the Ukraine-border bill passed. "I guess you could say I've got 99 problems but Mitch ain't one," Schumer joked at last week's Congressional Dinner. But their collective efforts may come to naught: Politico said the bill "is already close to failure." McConnell may have already accepted defeat: At a recent meeting with Senate Republicans, he "did not forcefully whip for or against the bill."

Meanwhile, the presidential election is approaching. Trump has all but wrapped up the nomination. But Spectrum News said that McConnell hasn't endorsed him as of yet. "I don't have any announcement to make on the presidential election," McConnell replied. "In fact, you all may recall I've stayed essentially out of it and when I change my mind about that, I'll let you know." Most observers believe, however, that "the question is not if McConnell will endorse Trump, but when." McConnell might be one of the most powerful and consequential GOP leaders in history. But even he is no match for Trump.

The battle for House speaker is finally over, but Republicans in Congress might not be done fighting each other. Politico reported that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is going “all out” to firm up U.S. support for Ukraine in its war against Russia — a quest that puts him “at odds with new Republican Speaker Mike Johnson,” who wants to split Ukraine aid from a package of support for Israel in its war against Hamas. 

McConnell sees both wars as part of the same struggle, The Hill reported. In a speech Monday in his home state of Kentucky, the minority leader said it is “to impose real consequences on the tyrants who have terrorized the people of Ukraine and of Israel.” But Johnson is taking a different angle: He said the House will vote this week on a $14 billion Israel-only bill. That means the two leaders are probably “headed for a showdown.”

“This could be a legacy-defining moment” for McConnell, Punchbowl News reported. He has been “Ukraine’s top supporter in Congress” and sees no reason — as do some in his party — to pick a fight with Democrats on the issue. But McConnell’s old-school hawkishness conflicts with the more isolationist tendencies of the MAGA crowd that gave Johnson his newfound power. “As of now, however, the House and Senate GOP leadership remain on completely different wavelengths.”

'We need to pick and choose'

McConnell isn’t just facing down House Republicans. There is dissent among GOP senators as well. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) went on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday to say the Israel and Ukraine packages could be considered separately. “There's broad bipartisan consensus that we should be supporting Israel,” Vance said. That’s not the case in Ukraine. Besides, he said, the U.S. doesn’t have enough resources for both countries’ wars. “We need to pick and choose.”

Johnson has also been among the Ukraine skeptics. The Washington Post reported that the new speaker has an “F” rating from Republicans for Ukraine, “having consistently voted with a minority of House Republicans against sending money.” But Johnson’s rhetoric “has often aligned with the party’s Russia hawks” and he has suggested some flexibility on the issue since his ascension. “Now, we can’t allow Vladimir Putin to prevail in Ukraine,” he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity, adding: “We’re not going to abandon them.”

That doesn’t mean he plans to make any of this easy. “Johnson is showing a special taste for confrontation in his early days with the gavel,” Politico reported. Indeed, the $14 billion aid package for Israel comes with a condition: It’s contingent on budget cuts for the Internal Revenue Service. That “doesn’t make a lot of sense” but the proposal offered Republicans a tangible accomplishment: “The libs, after all, were owned.”

'All connected'

So will Johnson come around on Ukraine aid? “I’m hopeful that he will decide that it was important to support Ukraine, as well,” McConnell said after the two men met last Thursday. He is supporting President Joe Biden’s proposal that links Ukraine and Israel aid together, along with funding for Taiwan and some new cash for U.S. border security. “I think it’s all connected,” McConnell said. 

“This could very well be the final massive piece of legislation” of the 81-year-old McConnell’s career, Business Insider noted. And it shows: McConnell is known for “commenting sparingly and sometimes leaving his own colleagues out of the loop on his thinking.” His “very public push” for Ukraine aid is a different approach, one that signifies his priorities. 

As for Johnson, he has signaled there will be some movement on a separate aid bill for Ukraine — but all in good time. “There are lots of things going on around the world that we have to address, and we will,” he said Sunday on Fox News. “But right now, what’s happening in Israel takes the immediate attention.” Ukraine might get more U.S. backing, in other words, but it will have to wait its turn.

'McConnell's iron grip on power over the Republican conference in the Senate is loosening'

Bradley Devlin in The American Conservative

Kevin McCarthy lost the speaker's gavel, but Mitch McConnell might wind up being the "biggest loser" in the recent turmoil on Capitol Hill, says Bradley Devlin in The American Conservative. McConnell (R-Ky.), the Senate minority leader, suffered a "brutal" but "largely unnoticed" defeat. He was determined to include aid for Kyiv in the deal to avert a shutdown, but other Republicans showed him they "would not be threatened with a shutdown into voting for Ukraine."

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'The speaker's gavel must remain in the hands of a House member'

Michael Ellis and Greg Dubinsky in The Wall Street Journal

Far-right Republicans have floated the possibility of making former President Donald Trump speaker of the House, say Michael Ellis and Greg Dubinsky in The Wall Street Journal. The theory anyone can become speaker is based on the Constitution's failure to "expressly" state otherwise. That's "amusing fodder for talk shows," but "textual silence" makes for a "weak" argument. "Settled practice" and "centuries of history" settle it. You want the gavel, get yourself elected to the House. 

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'School surveillance normalizes the idea that constant monitoring is good'

J.D. Tuccille in Reason

The Covid-19 public health panic "supercharged what was already a creeping culture of surveillance in public schools," writes J.D. Tuccille in Reason. The hope is that "Big Hallway Monitor" will "make kids safer." But "students are aware they're being observed" and the danger is that "trapping them in miniature surveillance states" will make them come to expect, and accept, this kind of erosion of their liberty. That's no way to teach them to "value freedom."

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'A failure to act on federal firefighter pay is a gamble on lives'

Ken Pimlott in the Los Angeles Times

Drought and heat have made recent fire seasons more dangerous, says Ken Pimlott in the Los Angeles Times, but there's a new threat this year: "looming pay cuts to thousands of federal wildland firefighters." These heroes got temporary biweekly raises under the 2021 infrastructure law. The recent stopgap spending deal to avert a government shutdown froze pay at current levels. Without further action the raises vanish, and experts warn "a third to half" of Forest Service firefighters could leave. 

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It would not be an overstatement to say that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been one the most consequential conservative lawmakers of the past century, if not the whole of American history. Over the course of his seven terms representing Kentucky in the United States Senate, McConnell has helped lead Republicans to major victories on tax policy, election finance laws, and, perhaps most significantly, helped shape a deeply conservative judiciary whose impact will be felt for generations. As the longest-serving Senate leader in history, McConnell is an institution unto himself, wielding the power of the position with sledgehammer force, and scalpel-like precision to push conservative priorities by any legislative means necessary.

While McConnell's name has become virtually synonymous with Senate Republicans as a whole, a series of public health scares coupled with a barrage of criticism from former President Donald Trump have called into question the 81-year-old lawmaker's future in the GOP, and in politics at large. Though McConnell has vowed to finish his tenure as minority leader through at least 2024, and complete his term in office through 2026, there is a growing sense that he is in his final act as a politician. And if that is indeed the case, what could the Republican party look like without Mitch McConnell at its helm? 

What the commentators said

Though the details of any resignation should be left to McConnell himself, who "deserves a large measure of deference," the editors of the conservative National Review nevertheless insisted that it's time for the man they've dubbed "a legend" to step aside. While a "transition doesn’t need to happen urgently," they wrote in late August, "the wheels should be turning."

"For his sake, and the sake of his colleagues" McConnell should "go out on his own terms," editor Rich Lowry told CNN after the piece was published.

Those terms, however, may already have been preempted. An effort to replace McConnell as Republican leader "is well underway " one GOP senator told The Hill on condition of anonymity. McConnell's recent health episodes "accelerates that." Among those senators most likely to replace McConnell are the "three Johns" according to The New York Times: Thune, Cornyn, and Barrasso, of South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming respectively. All three Johns are, or were, members of the Republican Senate leadership team, with Thune having replaced Cornyn as party whip in 2019, and Barrasso serving as chair of the party conference. 

"If there’s a favorite McConnell heir, no one is saying," according to Politico, which noted that both Thune and Cornyn have publicly committed to supporting McConnell for as long as he's in office. 

Naming the elephant in the room, CNN pointed out that it's the trio's respective relationships with Trump that could play the crucial role in their future. Together they represent "a sliding scale of acceptance" toward the former president. Trump has called Thune a "RINO," accused Cornyn of being "The Stiff," and lambasted Barrasso as a McConnell "flunky" regardless of Barrasso's attempts to be "more careful not to alienate Trump," CNN reported. 

No matter who replaces McConnell to lead Republicans, it's "unclear" whether his successor will have the "influence and authority to keep Senate Republicans together" ahead of a potentially contentious election season, New York magazine's Ed Kilgore said. Moreover, in the event of a second Trump presidency, it's not likely that any of McConnell's successors "can resist or even temper Trump’s destructive plans" for his return to the White House. Democrats have come to accept McConnell as a "bulwark against the party’s MAGA lurch, The Daily Beast reported. "You might prefer the devil you know instead of the devil you don’t," one Democratic official explained. 

What next?

Should McConnell step down early from both his leadership role and the Senate entirely, Republicans can rest easy that their control over his Kentucky seat will remain in the party's hands. In 2021 the state's GOP-controlled legislature changed the rules of vacancy appointments so that the governor — currently Democrat Andy Beshear — is required to name a successor from the departing figure's own party. Beshear, for his part, has promised "not to sensationalize" any hypothetical vacancy, telling USA Today that McConnell has promised "to serve out his term and I fully believe him."

When Kentucky Sen, Mitch McConnell (R) last ran for reelection in 2020, he handily defeated Democratic challenger Amy McGrath by nearly 20 points in a stunning display of the political clout that has made McConnell an institution in both his home state and the United States Senate as a whole. Just three years later, however, McConnell's seemingly impenetrable fiefdom appears on significantly shakier ground; the man whose senatorial impact and legacy rivals even that of Lyndon Johnson now finds himself increasingly at odds with his own party as it continues to transform into an extension — both politically and culturally — of former President Donald Trump.

Making his 28th appearance at Kentucky's annual St. Jerome Fancy Farm Picnic this weekend, McConnell was met with a cacophonous barrage of boos, shouted allegations that he'd "lost the Senate," and ongoing calls to "retire," even as he tried in vain to tell picnic-goers that "it's not hard for Republicans to look good these days."

The episode quickly went viral online, boosted in part by Trump himself, who shared a clip of McConnell's speech, complete with a transcription of the crowd's "BOOOOO—RETIRE, RETIRE, RETIRE—BOOOOO!!!" chant, on his Truth Social platform. "I AGREE!" Trump added, making absolutely clear where he stands on the issue of McConnell's senate tenure. That the incident occurred just days after McConnell inexplicably froze mid-sentence during a GOP press conference — itself just months after McConnell was discharged from a hospital after suffering a concussion from a recent fall — only served to heighten the sense that this onetime lion of the Senate might be facing his final act as a Republican leader. But is the McConnell era truly coming to a close, or will he weather this latest turbulence and continue leading his party for the foreseeable future?

What are the commentators saying?

"Speculation about McConnell's future has become more common" following his fall this past Spring, CNN reported, noting that despite warm applause when he first appeared at the Fancy Farm Picnic, "some voters expressed some concern about how his health will affect his ability to continue serving in the Senate." McConnell's "speech has sounded more halting in recent weeks, prompting questions among some of his colleagues about his health," according to The Associated Press. After his press-conference freeze-up, "a number of pro-Trump conservative media figures and activists, who have long despised the Senate minority leader, called for [McConnell's] immediate resignation," Vanity Fair said, adding that despite McConnell's vow to complete his term and tenure as Republican senate leader, his "obvious frailty means that a retirement or retreat from Senate leadership is certainly a possibility."

While the Associated Press said that the chorus of boos during McConnell's speech originated with Democrats in the audience, the fact that those in attendance chanted accused him of having "lost" the Senate highlights the bipartisan frustration with the longtime GOP leader, with the predictably Democratic opprobrium buttressed by a growing conservative bloc of Trump-influenced conservatives. Just before McConnell's speech this weekend, the former president called his onetime ally "perhaps the worst leader in the history of our country," alleging that "they've got something on Mitch McConnell."

For his part, McConnell "stuck to his script" during his speech, the New York Post reported, adding that he conspicuously "did not acknowledge" Trump's comments. Nevertheless, while his influence is unmatched across the GOP, Trump is not the only Republican who has publicly called for McConnell to step down: late last month former UN ambassador and current Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley also called McConnell out by name during a CBS interview, where she encouraged him to "know when to walk away" as part of a broader call for electoral term limits.

What's next?

To date, McConnell has publicly denied any plans to heed the calls for his retirement, saying in a statement last month that he intends to "serve his full term" as Senate minority leader, which his colleagues "overwhelmingly elected him to do." Still, the nexus of health concerns, with the steady flow of threats from the current Republican presidential front-runner has put McConnell in as vulnerable a position as he has ever been. Were he to retire, or find himself incapacitated while in office, a 2021 bill passed over the objections of Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear would require a fellow Republican to fill his seat, ensuring no change in the balance of partisan power in the Senate. What could change, however, is the balance of power within the GOP itself. Senators John Cornyn (R-Texas), Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wy.), and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) are each seen as "possible contenders to be McConnell's successor," according to Vox, which pointed out that "all three have at times sought to keep their distance" from Trump of late. Still, McConnell's absence would create a "power vacuum" in the Senate, which in turn could lead to "an opening for the MAGA wing of the party to grow its influence."

While his recent health concerns may have exacerbated calls for a change within the party, McConnell's once solid-seeming support showed cracks as early as this past midterm election, when — after losing the Senate majority to the Democrats — he faced an insurgent effort by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) to oust him as GOP leader. While Scott's effort ultimately only garnered 10 votes from fellow Republicans, it was a sign of shifting winds within the party. "My criticisms following the last election loss are well known," Sen. Josh Hawley, one of Scott's supporters, told Vanity Fair. "I think we need a different approach…but I don't want that to be taken as a dig against his health, at all."

"I'm against older candidates, the current president, Mitch McConnell," one attendee at this weekend's picnic told CNN. "I think that they've run their course in politics, I think they'd be good for backing people now. But I think politics now is more of a young man's game." In spite of those headwinds, though, McConnell himself seemed nothing but confident, telling picnic attendees that "this is my 28th Fancy Farm and I want to assure you it's not my last."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was released from the hospital on Monday, after receiving treatment for a concussion.

McConnell tripped and fell last Wednesday after attending a dinner in Washington, D.C. David Popp, a spokesman for McConnell, said in a statement the 81-year-old senator's "concussion recovery is proceeding well" and "at the advice of his physician, the next step will be a period of physical therapy at an inpatient rehabilitation facility before he returns home."

Popp also shared that over the weekend, McConnell's medical team "discovered that he ... suffered a minor rib fracture on Wednesday, for which he is also being treated."

In August 2019, McConnell fractured his shoulder after tripping outside of his Louisville home, and underwent surgery.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) "tripped at a local hotel during a private dinner," spokesman David Popp said in a statement late Wednesday. "He has been admitted to the hospital where he is receiving treatment." Pope did not provide any additional information.

McConnell, 81, recently became the longest-serving Senate leader in U.S. history. In August 2019, when he was majority leader, McConnell tripped, fell, and fractured his shoulder at his home in Kentucky. After surgery to repair the fracture, McConnell worked from home for several weeks.

It's not clear how long McConnell will be out after this fall, if at all. But "the Senate, where the average age is 65, has been without several members recently due to illness," The Associated Press reports. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is out to treat clinical depression, while Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), 89, said last week that she was hospitalized with shingles. Until now, Senate Republicans, with a slim 51-49 minority, "have had an easier time with intermittent absences," AP notes.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday seemed to criticize former President Donald Trump's calls to "suspend" the Constitution, NPR reported.

"Anyone seeking the presidency who thinks that the Constitution could somehow be suspended or not followed, it seems to me would have a very hard time being sworn in as president of the United States," McConnell said while answering reporter's questions on Capitol Hill.

When asked by CNN if he would support Trump if he were the 2024 GOP nominee, McConnell would not commit either way.

"What I'm saying is it would be pretty hard to be sworn into the presidency if you're not willing to uphold the Constitution," McConnell answered. "That's what I said, and I've just said it again."

McConnell's comments were in response to a post made by the former president on his social media platform, Truth Social, in which he appeared to call for the termination of the Constitution, citing the disproven claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

"A massive fraud of this type allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution," Trump wrote. "Our great 'founders' did not want, and would not condone, False and Fraudulent elections!"

While the White House was quick to condemn Trump's remarks, the GOP reacted more slowly. McConnell has become one of very few within the party to speak outright against Trump's comments, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), possibly the next speaker of the House, has not referenced Trump's post directly.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers assembled on Tuesday to award four Congressional Gold Medals to law enforcement officials who were present during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, making good on legislation passed more than a year ago to honor representatives of the Capitol Police and D.C. Metropolitan Police with Congress' highest form of appreciation.

"Staring down deadly violence and despicable bigotry, our law enforcement officers bravely stood in the breach, ensuring that democracy survived on that dark day," outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said during the ceremony. She also described Jan. 6 as "a day of horror and heartbreak" as well as "a moment of extraordinary heroism."

As the law enforcement officials and their families walked past the congressional leaders to accept their medals, many conspicuously refused to shake the hands of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

"It's self-explanatory," explained the brother of officer Brian Sicknick, who died shortly after the insurrection attempt. "They came out right away and condemned what happened on Jan. 6. And then whatever hold that Trump has on them — they've backstepped, they've danced, they won't admit to wrongdoing."

The tension at the event was not limited to the stage. According to former police officer Michael Fanone, one of the attendees at the ceremony who had previously testified to Congress about his experience during the attack, members of the Metropolitan Police Department's Special Operations Division actively heckled him at the medal event. "They called me a piece of s--t," he told NBC News. "And mockingly called me a 'great f--king hero' while clapping."

On Nov. 30, congressional Democrats elected Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) as their new party leader for the coming legislative term, replacing outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who earlier announced plans to step back from the role she's held for decades.

Jeffries, long considered a "rising star" in Democratic politics, is now the first Black lawmaker to lead a major political party in American history. But within hours of securing his new position, conservatives began coalescing around a new — and for many, surprising — label for Jeffries: "election denier."

Who is saying it?

The official political body of the GOP, the Republican National Committee, lead the charge against Jeffries by blasting out a press bulletin and accompanying tweet labeling the new Democratic leader an "election denier" who they claimed is "just as unhinged, crazy, and far left" as Pelosi.

While the line of attack on Jeffries had, itself, been floated several weeks earlier by the RNC, it was amplified in the immediate wake of his intra-party election by major conservative media outlets, and — crucially — given the imprimatur of Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) himself. Speaking on the Senate floor the morning after Jeffries' election, McConnell labeled the new minority leader "a past election denier, who basically said the 2016 election was 'illegitimate' and suggested that we had a 'fake president'" as part of an extended speech on the alleged hypocrisies of the left.

Other conservative lawmakers and commentators have echoed the charge, including former Donald Trump administration physician Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

What has Jeffries said?

During his time in office — and specifically during the years under the Trump administration — Jeffries has repeatedly criticized the former president, and the GOP as a whole, for both complacency in documented Russian efforts to subvert the 2016 presidential election, as well as proactive efforts to manipulate the 2020 race.

Does that mean Jeffries is, in fact, an "election denier"?

In so much as Jeffries has indeed called the legitimacy of the Trump presidency into question, the label could technically apply here. However, nothing he's said has been substantively different from statements made by other major figures in the Democratic party, including Hillary Clinton, Rep. John Lewis (R-Ga.), former President Jimmy Carter, and current President Joe Biden. Relatedly, conservative efforts to newly frame Jeffries' comments stretching back years as a hypocritical reflection on the Democrats ignores Trump's active and ongoing manipulation of the electoral process for his own future benefit.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced Thursday that she will step down as leader of the House Democrats, a position she has held since 2003, but remain in Congress when Republicans take control of the House next January. Democrats were effusive in their praise for Pelosi, but most current House Republicans were not. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) did not attend her leadership retirement speech, telling reporters later that he "had meetings" and wished he "could have been there."

Other recent Republican congressional leaders did congratulate Pelosi on her long and historic tenure as House speaker.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has been Republican leader in the Senate since Pelosi was first elected speaker in 2007, issued a statement Thursday night congratulating her "on concluding her historic tenure as House Democrats' leader and her second stint as speaker of the House. The speaker and I have disagreed frequently and forcefully over the years, but I have seen firsthand the depth and intensity of her commitment to public service. There is no question that the impact of Speaker Pelosi's consequential and path-breaking career will long endure."

Former House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who succeeded Pelosi after Republicans captured the House in 2010, tweeted his congratulations.

And former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who served after Boehner from 2015 until 2019, when Pelosi began her second turn leading the House, welcomed her (back) to the exclusive former speaker's club.

"The thing about Pelosi is that, despite massive policy differences, most Republicans privately marvel about just how effective she is," Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman, a long time Washington political reporter, tweeted Thursday. "They know that she is almost always able to get done what she sets out to do. Why? Unlike the other speakers and leaders I've covered in the House, Pelosi inspires incredibly intense loyalty but also fear."

"Republicans never really feared Boehner and Ryan the way they feared Pelosi," Sherman added. "It's been quite something to watch over the years. She, by far, has the strongest grip on her caucus of any other leaders I've covered."

Jesse Benton, a former top aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), was convicted Thursday of helping a Russian citizen illegally funnel a political donation to former President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Benton, 44, purchased a $25,000 ticket to a September 2016 Republican National Committee event for Trump and gave the ticket to Russian multilevel marketer Roman Vasilenko. Vasilenko then gave Benton $100,000.

Elections "reflect the values and the priorities and the beliefs of American citizens," Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Parikh said at Benton's trial this week. "Jesse Benton by his actions did damage to those principles."

This is Benton's second conviction for campaign finance violations. In May 2016, he was found guilty of illegally facilitating the transfer of $73,000 to an Iowa state senator in exchange for endorsing Ron Paul during his 2012 presidential bid. Trump pardoned Benton in December 2020, soon before leaving office.

Prosecutors indicted Benton and Doug Wead, a conservative evangelical pundit involved in multilevel marketing, in September 2021. Wead, who died later that year at age 75, was accused of connecting Vasilenko to Benton.

Benton's lawyer, Brian Stolarz, argued during the trial that Vasilenko was just a self-promoter willing to pay to get photos of himself with celebrities, and he and Wead settled on Trump after looking into photo ops with Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, and Stephen Seagal, The Washington Post reports. "If Oprah was available," he said in his closing argument, "we wouldn't even be here." Stolarz said Vasilenko was interested in a photo with "the guy who used to be on The Apprentice," not a future president, and Trump appeared only briefly at the fundraiser and "just talked about polls."

Prosecutors disputed the idea that Vasilenko wasn't interested in Trump's political cachet, noting he was running for a seat in Russia's parliament at the time, and his photo with Trump helped get him on Russian television. And Benton, they said, clearly should have known he was violating federal campaign finance laws after his 2016 conviction.

Former President Donald Trump decried Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and said he should be ousted as the head of the Senate Republicans.

During an interview with Fox News published on Election Day, Trump described McConnell as a "lousy leader" and said the GOP needed new leadership in both chambers of Congress. "People are very upset with Mitch McConnell — I'll tell you who is upset with him — the public," the former president said. "I think we'll probably have to live with him for two years, and if I run and if I win, I will say, 'Don't send me any legislation if he's the leader,' and he'll be out in two minutes."

"McConnell has been very bad for our nation," Trump continued. "He has been very bad for the Republican Party. I would be in favor of somebody else — McConnell has done a very bad job."

The former president also said he regretted previously endorsing McConnell and has called in the past for his impeachment — despite the fact that neither senators nor representatives can be impeached. Instead, Trump suggested that Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) could take McConnell's place, calling him a "very talented guy."

"I think Rick Scott is a likely candidate — he hates [McConnell]," Trump said.

There has been a significant falling out between Trump and McConnell, with the former allies largely splitting with each other after the Jan. 6 attacks. Since leaving office, Trump has significantly ramped up his attacks on McConnell, saying he had a "death wish." Trump is widely expected to announce a presidential bid early next week, while control of the Senate for at least the next two years will be decided on Tuesday night.

At the end of September, the Senate passed a stopgap spending bill to fund the government through Dec. 16, with 22 Republicans — including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — joining all 50 Democrats in support, The Washington Post reports. But McConnell's backing soon angered former President Donald Trump, who subsequently posted an angry rant against the minority leader on his social media site, Truth Social. In his post, Trump wrote that McConnell must have had a "DEATH WISH" (yes, in all caps) for agreeing to the stopgap bill, before then making racist comments toward McConnell's wife, Elaine Chao, a Taiwanese-American who also served as the former president's transportation secretary, the Post continues.

Trump's anger toward McConnell doesn't just stem from the funding bill; he's targeted the minority leader for a while, especially since McConnell condemned Trump's actions on Jan. 6, 2021. But the former president's inflammatory Truth Social post was akin to incitement of violence, critics say, and the GOP hasn't exactly been forthcoming in its response. Below, thought leaders weigh in: Did Trump's "death wish" comment go too far?

It's bad even for Trump

The former president is no stranger to inflammatory statements, but the McConnell post was bad ... even by his standards, some argue. Per Bernard Goldberg, an opinion contributor for The Hill: "Donald Trump always puts himself first — even if it may put people he doesn't like in harm's way." And though supporters have argued that Trump was simply referring to a political death wish — not a literal one — Goldberg still isn't convinced: "If that's what he meant, he easily could have said so. He didn't. Instead, he played with fire," he writes. The post was "a dangerous way to settle a personal vendetta, even by Donald Trump standards."

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board agreed, noting there could be real consequences to Trump's words. "It's all too easy to imagine some fanatic taking [Trump] seriously and literally, and attempting to kill Mr. McConnell," the board said, comparing the former president's post to the rhetoric he used to talk about former Vice President Mike Pence and the resulting "Hang Mike Pence!" chants on Jan. 6, 2021.

Will we ever hear more than crickets from the GOP?

Many members of the GOP have yet to properly comment on the incident. For example, when asked about the comments, Florida Sen. Rick Scott (R) said he "can never talk about and respond to why anybody else says what they said"." He also dismissed the racist comments toward McConnell's wife as just a "nickname."

The Editorial Board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch argues that silence from Republican leaders shows that they "view this dangerously unstable ex-president as untouchable, no matter what he says or does." And despite Trump's words, many Republican candidates in the upcoming midterms attended a rally with him in Michigan. "This is the behavior of a cult," added Rex Huppke, columnist for USA Today. He continued: "How is it possible for Republicans to continue supporting a malignant figure who would unleash his hateful hounds on them in a heartbeat?"

Trump's threats are dangerous and cannot be ignored

Despite Trump's history of maligning his opponents, "simply ignoring his utterances isn't really viable, attractive as it may seem," writes John Cassidy, columnist for the New Yorker. For one thing, the former president's incendiary words come as two major political struggles are unfolding: "a low-intensity civil war in the Republican Party and a high-intensity effort by Trump to persuade his supporters that his ... adversaries are illegitimate," Cassidy says.

But the former president's tendency to belittle his opponents sheds light on a larger problem, Cassidy posits: In painting a picture of persecution against himself and his supporters, Trump positions criticism as "treasonous" — and that's dangerous to the political system.

Adds Chris Cillizza, CNN editor-at-large: "[W]e shouldn't simply dismiss this latest outrage. To do so is to normalize this sort of behavior."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said recently that Republicans might not win back control of the Senate in the November midterms as they once expected, and he blamed the quality of the candidates the party was nominating. On Monday, he gave the GOP a 50-50 chance of regaining a majority in the chamber, now evenly split but controlled by Democrats with Vice President Kamala Harris' tie-breaking vote. "We've got a 50-50 Senate right now. We've got a 50-50 nation. And I think the outcome is likely to be very, very close either way," McConnell said.

Former President Donald Trump, who has endorsed many of the GOP candidates who have won the party's Senate primaries, angrily called the party's longtime Senate leader a "broken down political hack." Trump has been backing candidates, like Blake Masters in Arizona, who have embraced his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him through voter fraud. Republicans have won races in swing states, and even Democratic strongholds, when they ran moderate candidates, but polls show that Trump-backed conservatives are having a hard time in the polls. Are GOP primary voters picking nominees who will help them take over the Senate, or are they backing candidates whose ties to Trump will be a liability in the general election?

McConnell is right

Republicans clearly have a better chance to take the House than the Senate, says Harry Enten at CNN. At the beginning of 2022, Democrats "were clear underdogs" in the November fight for control of the Senate due to "the normal midterm backlash against the president's party." Now they're in a far better position, and the quality of GOP candidates is a big reason. Just look at Arizona and Wisconsin. President Biden won both states by just one percentage point in 2020, and Trump carried them in 2016. But in recent polls, Sen. Mark Kelly, the Democratic incumbent in Arizona, led Republican Blake Masters by eight points. Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, the Democratic challenger in Wisconsin, led incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson by seven points in one poll, and four points in another. A big reason for the GOP's troubles is that both Republicans are "underwater" in their favorability ratings, offsetting Biden's low approval marks.

Actually, McConnell is the problem

The GOP does have a "quality" problem, says Jeff Crouere at Townhall.com. It's the poor quality of McConnell's leadership, and his failure to focus on defeating a Democratic Party "that is hell bent on ruining the country." McConnell should be rallying Republicans to fight the drug crisis, and focusing on "our poor economy, rampant crime, and our constitutional rights, which are being continually attacked during the Biden presidency." Instead, he's worried "about fighting the MAGA agenda and sending billions of dollars" to Ukraine to fight Russia, while "2,250 people in Kentucky died of drug overdoses last year." McConnell is a creature of the Washington Swamp, who "supports moderate Republican candidates" in the image of Sen. Mitt Romney and members of the Bush family. "Republicans will never succeed in remaking our government and fixing our problems with people like McConnell in U.S. Senate leadership positions."

McConnell only has himself to blame for the rise of Trumpy candidates

McConnell has good reason to fear "this batch of bozos might dash GOP dreams of a Senate majority," says Eric Lutz in Vanity Fair. Most of "Trump's handpicked contenders" have major weaknesses — from Pennsylvania GOP Senate hopeful former TV doctor Mehmet Oz, "who apparently believes raw asparagus belongs in crudité," to Georgia candidate Herschel Walker, a former football star "whose own campaign staff reportedly regards him as a 'pathological liar.'" Oz, thanks partly to his clumsy campaign, is "losing ground in Pennsylvania" to media-savvy Democrat John Fetterman, and Walker, who has been hampered by past domestic violence allegations, is trailing incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia. Then there's Blake Masters in Arizona, "who literally has the backing of some of the Internet's most well-known white nationalists" (despite his attempts to distance himself from them). The thing is, McConnell could "take a stand" against the "Trumpier figures in their party." But he won't, so, in reality, he "only has himself to blame for the rise of these dangerous weirdos."

Mitch couldn't stop these candidates, but he can help them win

These Trump-backed Republicans needed Trump to win their primaries, says The Wall Street Journal in an editorial, but now they need McConnell. Take J.D. Vance, the Hillbilly Elegy author who won the Ohio primary in a divided field after Trump backed him. "Ohio should be a layup for the GOP this year." Republican Sen. Rob Portman is retiring after two terms, and the state has been trending right, with Trump carrying it by eight points. But Vance has struggled to win over GOP donors "he disdained as he courted the populist right," so the McConnell-allied Super Pac the Senate Leadership Fund is committing $28 million "to save" him. Blake Masters, who called for McConnell's replacement as Senate leader during the primary, also is sending out a plea for his help heading into the general election. Trump can help candidates win in a crowded primary field, but they need McConnell's support to "lift them to victory against Democrats in states that aren't solidly Republican."

Former President Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Saturday to blast Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) over his criticisms of Republican Senate candidates.

"Why do Republicans Senators allow a broken down hack politician, Mitch McConnell, to openly disparage hard working Republican candidates for the United States Senate[?]" Trump posted on his Truth Social network. "This is such an affront to honor and to leadership. He should spend more time (and money!) helping them get elected, and less time helping his crazy wife and family get rich on China!"

McConnell has, for years, faced accusations of corruption due to his marriage to former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, whose father was born in China and founded a successful shipping company. See, for example, West Virginia Senate candidate Don Blankenship's 2018 "Cocaine Mitch" ad.

Trump's comments come after McConnell said Thursday that Republicans might fail to flip the Senate in November and that "candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome."

Meanwhile, Trump is reportedly reconsidering his plan to launch his 2024 presidential campaign before the November midterms, hoping to avoid being blamed if the midterms don't go as well as Republicans hope, one source close to him said.

Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle suggested that Trump deserves plenty of blame already. She blamed Trump for endorsing "weak and inexperienced" candidates in winnable races and argued that the Republican Party's "Trumpy base, which loves to see the GOP's more moderate candidates getting what-for, is helping Trump to inadvertently elect Democrats."

When the Biden administration dropped the proposed nomination of a conservative anti-abortion lawyer for a lifetime federal judgeship in Kentucky on Friday, a White House spokesman cited opposition from home-state Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) agreed, saying President Biden had agreed to nominate lawyer Chad Meredith as a "personal friendship gesture" to him, until Paul sabotaged the nomination.

"The net result of this is it has prevented me from getting my kind of judge out of a liberal Democratic president," McConnell told The New York Times on Friday. He called Paul's position "just utterly pointless."

Paul hit back on Monday, saying he supported Meredith joining the federal judiciary but McConnell should have discussed the nomination with him. "Unfortunately, instead of communicating and lining up support for him, Sen. McConnell chose to cut a secret deal with the White House that fell apart," he said in a statement. "McConnell's to blame for tanking this because he tried to do it secretly," Paul told Politico.

A person with direct knowledge of Meredith's nomination process told Politico that McConnell and Paul's offices "had conversations for months about this on the staff level." And McConnell on Friday denied there was any deal with Biden and scoffed at the idea Paul could have lined up such a win: "The president would not have been taking a recommendation from Rand Paul, I can assure you."

Biden had informed Kennedy Gov. Andy Beshear (D) of his intention to nominate Meredith on June 23, The Louisville Courier-Journal reported, but the nomination was put on hold after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade the following morning. Beshear and other Democrats in Kentucky and elsewhere were baffled and infuriated by the decision to nominate a Federalist Society member who had defended the state's anti-abortion law in court.

"It's unlikely that the Democratic Senate would have confirmed Meredith anyway, given his conservative views and the opposition from several leading liberals that stemmed in part from his anti-abortion rights stance," Politico notes. But McConnell and his allies were happy to blame Paul.

"I suspect the White House is relieved; I suspect Dick Durbin is relieved; and I suspect that the political people in the Biden team are relieved that Rand Paul blew this up," a McConnell adviser told USA Today on Monday. "He did them a huge favor."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that he plans to support the gun-control agreement a bipartisan group of senators announced on Sunday, but only if the text of the bill substantively reflects the proposed framework.

"For myself, I'm comfortable with the framework," McConnell told reporters. "And if the legislation ends up reflecting what the framework indicates, I'll be supportive." McConnell was not part of the bipartisan group of senators who hammered out the agreement.

According to a statement released by those 20 senators — 10 from each party — the proposed legislation would incentivize states to pass "red flag" laws. These would allow guns to be confiscated from "individuals whom a court has determined to be a significant danger to themselves or others."

The bill would also increase funding for school security, direct billions of dollars toward mental health programs, expand background checks for gun buyers under the age of 21 to include juvenile justice records, and close the so-called "boyfriend loophole," preventing people who have abused their dating partners from buying firearms.

President Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) have already thrown their support behind the bill. With McConnell's backing, it's very likely to pass.

Mitch lied to us.

Following the Jan. 6 insurrection, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made it clear he thought then-President Donald Trump was responsible for the violence. The Trump-loving rioters "did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth — because he was angry he'd lost an election," he said in an instantly famous speech at the end of Trump's second impeachment trial.

But, darn it, McConnell was just too principled to actually vote for Trump's conviction. It wasn't the constitutional thing to do, you see — Trump had already left office, which made the impeachment effort a dead letter.

That, we now know definitively, was a load of horsepucky. A new book by a pair New York Times journalists reports McConnell cheered on the impeachment effort, only privately. "The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a b---h for us," he reportedly told advisers on Jan. 11, adding: "If this isn't impeachable, I don't know what is."

But McConnell reversed course when he realized that few GOP senators were on board with the effort. He slow-walked the impeachment process so that the trial would finish well after President Biden's inauguration and Trump's Jan. 20 departure from the White House — only to use that delay as his excuse for voting against conviction. "He didn't ascend to power by siding with the minority, [McConnell] explained to a friend," the Times reported.

The new revelations make clear McConnell actually thought impeaching Trump was the right thing to do, that actually he expected the Democrats to succeed, that he actually expected a substantial number of Republicans to join that effort — and that he undermined the overall effort when he realized it would mean the loss of his own power.

That famous impeachment speech? It was an attempt to have it both ways, to condemn the insurrection without having to take responsibility for imposing consequences. Worst of all, it was cynical in the extreme, invoking the Constitution to abet its destruction.

That wasn't just craven. It was consequential.

An impeachment conviction would've cleared the way for Congress to bar Trump from ever running for president again. Instead, the former president is his party's front-runner for the 2024 nomination. Given Biden's low ratings, Trump might even win the presidency outright. If that happens — if the "SOB" actually takes power again — McConnell will bear a substantial share of the blame.

A new book from New York Times reporters Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin purports to reveal how House and Senate Minority Leaders Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), respectively, quietly railed against former President Donald Trump in the aftermath of the Capitol riot, only to back down in the near future, the Times reports.

According to This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America's Future, McCarthy and McConnell initially told colleagues in the days after the riot that they believed Trump bore responsibility for the attack, the Times writes. "I've had it with this guy," McCarthy reportedly told a group of Republican leaders.

In a phone call with other top Republicans on Jan. 8, McCarthy reportedly called Trump's behavior on Jan. 6 "atrocious and totally wrong" before inquiring about the 25th Amendment, which grants the vice president and members of the cabinet the power to remove a president from office. And in another call two days later, McConnell reportedly told GOP leaders he would advise the president to resign.

A spokesperson for McCarthy says the minority leader said no such thing. McCarthy has since remained one of Trump's staunchest supporters.

And in the Senate, McConnell reportedly told advisers shortly after the riot that "the Democrats are going to take care of the son of a b--ch for us," alluding to Trump and the imminent impeachment vote in the House.

"If this isn't impeachable, I don't know what is," McConnell had said at one point, per This Will Not Pass.

But when it came time to vote in the Senate, McConnell moved to acquit the former president (albeit not without giving a floor speech condemning him).

Now, though McConnell's become one of Trump's least favorite lawmakers, he still plans to stand behind the ex-president should he secure the nomination in 2024.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is urging his fellow Senate Republicans to vote against confirming Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, The Hill reported Saturday.

Per The Hill, McConnell said his opposition is not based on "race or gender," but on concerns about Jackson's judicial philosophy and her record, which critics have characterized as being soft on crime.

Despite McConnell's vote whipping, it is unlikely Republicans will be able to block Jackson's confirmation. Even if all 50 Republican senators vote against Jackson, Vice President Kamala Harris can still break the tie in the nominee's favor.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who has broken ranks with his fellow Democrats in the past, said last week that Jackson can count on his vote. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said the same on Wednesday, suggesting that Harris' intervention will not be necessary.

According to The Hill, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said he has not yet decided which way he will vote.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) went after the left on Wednesday following a smattering of calls for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself in Capitol riot and 2020 election-related cases, Axios reports.

The "new and inappropriate pressure campaign," as McConnell referred to it, arrived after it was revealed that Thomas' wife repeatedly messaged then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to try and overturn the 2020 election. Now, some House progressives —like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) — have even gone so far as to raise the possibility of impeachment.

"The left's quest to delegitimize the Supreme Court found its latest outlet," McConnell said on the Senate floor on Wednesday. "This time it's a coordinated effort to nullify the presence of Justice Clarence Thomas on the court."

The minority leader said Democrats are "dusting off their party's impeachment addiction," and engaging in "a tired old tactic" to request that justices recuse themselves over "spurious accusations about fake ethical problems or partiality."

It's a "well-worn pattern," McConnell claimed, and has "no basis in Justice Thomas' decades of impeccable service on the court."

"This clumsy bullying from the political branches is really beyond the pale. Justice Thomas is an exemplary jurist who has modeled fidelity to the rule of law for more than 30 years and counting," he said.

McConnell first defended Thomas following initial reports of his wife's texts, The Hill notes.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday said he entered this week "with an open mind" about Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, but because she "refuses to reject the fringe position that Democrats should try to pack the Supreme Court," he will vote against her nomination.

Speaking from the Senate floor, McConnell said "after studying the nominee's record and watching her performance this week, I cannot and will not support Judge Jackson for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court." McConnell, who in 2021 voted against Jackson's nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, was not expected to support her nomination.

McConnell said a question about expanding the court should have been "an easy softball" for Jackson to answer during her confirmation hearing on Tuesday. When asked if she supports adding more justices to the Supreme Court, Jackson declined to respond, saying, "Again, my north star is the consideration of the proper role of a judge in our constitutional scheme. And in my view, judges should not be speaking to political issues and certainly not a nominee for a position on the Supreme Court."

Jackson also noted that Justice Amy Coney Barrett similarly declined to comment on the matter during her 2020 confirmation hearings.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will likely vote on Jackson's nomination on April 4, with the full Senate vote expected in late April.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki tweeted Sunday that President Biden has "no plans" to visit Ukraine during his trip to Europe this week.

It would likely be difficult for Ukraine to guarantee Biden's safety no matter where he went in the country. Western Ukraine remained safe for the first several weeks of the Russian invasion, but Russian forces have recently begun launching strikes in that part of the country, including a cruise missile attack on an aircraft repair plant in Lviv and a hypersonic missile strike targeting what the Russian Defense Ministry described as "a large underground warehouse containing missiles and aviation ammunition in the ... Ivano-Frankivsk region."

United States Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield seemed to confirm Psaki's statement on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday.

"Three European heads of state visited Kyiv in the last week or so, [and] former Ukrain[ian] President Petro Poroshenko suggested that President Biden should visit Ukraine during his trip to Europe this week. Is that on the table?" host Jake Tapper asked Thomas-Greenfield.

(Tapper's first statement was not quite correct. According to The Washington Post, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, and Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa all visited Kyiv last week, but they are their countries' heads of government, not heads of state).

"As far as I know, that's not on the table," Thomas-Greenfield responded.

During a Sunday appearance on CBS' Face the Nation, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Biden should get as close to Ukraine as he can.

"[W]hat I'd like to see the president do is to reassure our Eastern Bloc allies. It's fine to go to Brussels. It's fine to go to Berlin, and I'd like to see him go to Romania or Poland or to the Baltics. They're right on the front lines and need to know that we're in this fight with them to win," McConnell said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made a statement to reporters Monday condemning Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) for appearing alongside white nationalist Nick Fuentes, Politico reports.

"There's no place in the Republican Party for white supremacists or anti-Semitism," McConnell said.

Greene and Gosar spoke at the America First Political Action Conference in Orlando, an event organized by Fuentes, over the weekend. It was Greene's first time at the event. Gosar returned after delivering the keynote last year.

During an address to the crowd, Fuentes called for a "round of applause for Russia," amid its invasion of Ukraine. The crowd responded with a brief chant of "Putin! Putin!"

On his streaming show, America First, Fuentes has used the N-word and said he believes only 200,000 to 300,000 Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

McConnell was not the only Republican to criticize Greene and Gosar for appearing at the event. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) described the two as "morons" who are "certainly missing a few IQ points." House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called their participation "appalling and wrong" and "unacceptable."

Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), both of whom were censured by the RNC for serving on the Jan. 6 committee, also spoke out. Cheney posted a tweet calling Greene and Gosar "the Putin wing of the GOP," while Kinzinger complained that while "Liz and I can get censured, they're going to get help up as the future leaders of the party."

Gosar was censured and stripped of his committee assignments by the House in November after he posted an edited anime video that depicted him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and depicted immigrants as flesh-eating monsters. Greene was stripped of her committee assignments in Feb. 2021 for suggesting (among other things) that school shootings were false flag operations.

Former President Donald Trump reportedly urged first-term Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) to challenge Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for Senate Republican leadership during a private meeting at Mar-a-Lago this week, Politico reports.

According to someone familiar with the exchange, Scott changed the subject, telling Trump that right now his "only focus is on winning" back control of the Senate from Democrats.

McConnell said earlier this month that he isn't worried by Trump's repeated calls to oust him from Senate leadership.

Scott, who heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, defied McConnell earlier this week by releasing an 11-point policy agenda for the 2022 midterms. McConnell had intended to avoid concrete proposals and make the elections a referendum on President Biden's leadership.

Scott's agenda includes barring the federal government from asking citizens to indicate their race or ethnicity on government forms, eliminating the Department of Education, completing the wall on the southern border and naming it after Trump, and making all Americans pay at least a nominal amount of income tax.

If you don't tell voters what you plan to do once they elect you, there are no campaign promises to fulfill and your opponents can't attack you on your agenda during the campaign. That's why Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) long-held philosophy is that silence is the best policy. Asked about the GOP's 2022 midterms agenda in January, McConnell told reporters, "I'll let you know when we take it back."

"McConnell may be irked, then, that a member of his leadership team released an agenda of his own on Tuesday morning," Jim Newell suggests at Slate. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) published his 31-page, 11-point GOP governing blueprint because, he told Politico, it's "important to tell people what we're gonna do."

Scott chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP's campaign arm, but he said this is his own plan, not the NRSC's.

Scott's agenda would bar the federal government from asking citizens about their race or ethnicity — even on the Census — or their sexual preference or "gender identity." He would have all school kids learn patriotism and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, ban indoctrinating kids with "political ideology," and eliminate the Department of Education.

"The document is largely a compilation of culture war grievances," Newell writes. "But wedged between the cultural huffing and snorting, there are some policy prescriptions that you might hear about for the rest of the campaign cycle — in attacks from Democrats."

Scott is effectively "rekindling the same issue that led Mitt Romney to stumble into his '47 percent' gaffe," Aaron Blake explains at The Washington Post. Romney was covertly filmed in 2012 telling donors he would tackle the 47 percent of "takers" who don't pay federal income tax, he adds, but in 2020 "that number climbed as high as 61 percent," meaning that by the GOP's own criteria, Scott is proposing to raise taxes on between 75 million and 100 million Americans.

"You begin to see the potential political problem here," Blake writes. "The political ads almost write themselves."

Scott may get points for frankness. But really, "McConnell's strategy of not previewing an agenda is more honest, because the agenda is to deprive Democrats of the ability to do what they want" until at least 2024, Newell argues. "Scott's agenda isn't a preview of what Republican congressional majorities would do after the midterms. It's a preview of the Republican presidential primary."

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) will deliver the Republican Party response to President Biden's State of the Union Address, scheduled for March 1, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced Tuesday.

"While Washington Democrats fail working Americans, Republican governors are fighting and winning for families. Gov. Kim Reynolds' brave, bold, and successful leadership for Iowans has put her right at the front of that pack," McConnell wrote in a statement. "I am thrilled the American people will hear directly from Gov. Reynolds. The president and his team should take notes."

"Kim Reynolds represents what it means to lead with conviction and true faith in our fellow citizens," McCarthy added in the same press release. "America will be better off hearing Gov. Reynolds' Iowa story."

Reynolds' remarks will follow Biden's, and will take place out of Des Moines. Her speech will give the governor "a prominent national platform to speak to the country and counter Biden's message," CNN notes.

Prominent senators from both parties released a joint statement Tuesday expressing support for Ukraine and threatening Russia with severe consequences in the event of an invasion, CNN reported.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) both joined in the statement, as did Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.), and Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Pat Toomey (R-Penn.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Mark Warner (D-Va.), and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

"In this dark hour, we are sending a bipartisan message of solidarity and resolve to the people of Ukraine, and an equally clear warning to [Russian President] Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin," the statement read.

It went on to urge the U.S. and NATO to "move quickly to ensure that the government of Ukraine receives sustained emergency assistance to defend against an illegal Russian invasion," which the statement described as the gravest threat the post-World War II international order has faced since the Cold War.

Despite this bipartisan show of support, the GOP remains divided on Ukraine. Establishment Republicans push for a hard line against Russia, while libertarians like Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and populists like Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) insist America has no dog in the fight.

President Biden said Tuesday that, despite Russia's announcement that it was pulling some troops off the Ukrainian border, an invasion "is still very much a possibility," USA Today reported.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is not particularly worried his Senate leadership days are numbered, as has been suggested by frequent McConnell critic and statement-maker extraordinaire former President Donald Trump.

Trump lost faith in the minority leader after the latter voted to certify President Biden's victory in the 2020 election, notes The Washington Examiner. Then, in the summer of 2021, Trump "began demanding that Republican senators remove McConnell as their leader" — a role he's held, mind you, for 15 years.

When asked by the Examiner if he's concerned Trump "might spark a revolt against his leadership," or prevent him from becoming majority leader should Republicans regain the chamber in the midterms, McConnell was seemingly unbothered by the suggestion.

"Every reporter in town, including, I'm sure, you, have been probing to find one for months, right?" he said, alluding to the possibility of finding a Republican senator who agrees with Trump and wants to oust McConnell. "Have you found one?"

No Senate Republican has announced feeling such a way, writes the Examiner. "That's the answer to your question," McConnell said.

McConnell also laughed off Trump's "Old Crow" nickname for him, opting to take it instead as almost a compliment.

"It's my favorite bourbon," McConnell told the Examiner, referring to a drink of the same name.

"Aren't we using Old Crow as my moniker now?" he asked a member of his staff. "It was Henry Clay's favorite bourbon."

1. Moscow denies deal to de-escalate as Macron meets with Ukraine leader

Moscow on Tuesday denied reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron had reached a tentative agreement on de-escalating the Ukraine crisis. French officials had indicated that Macron left Moscow with the understanding that Russia would not keep troops in Belarus near the Ukrainian border after military exercises end this month. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it was the United States, not France, that had the status to work out a deal. The statement cast doubt on Macron's diplomatic clout as he moved on to meet with Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in Kyiv on Tuesday. Macron said the tension caused by the fear Russia will invade Ukraine is "unprecedented," and won't "be solved thanks to a few hours of discussions."

The New York Times

2. McConnell criticizes RNC for censuring Jan. 6 committee members

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday became the most prominent Republican to criticize the Republican National Committee's decision to censure GOP Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) for working on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. The RNC called the committee's investigation "a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse," and accused Cheney and Kinzinger of hurting the House and the GOP. McConnell disagreed, saying that the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was a "violent insurrection" aiming to "prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election." He also said it wasn't the RNC's job to single out GOP lawmakers for criticism just because they have different views on an issue.

The Washington Post

3. CDC director says mask guidance unchanged as some states lift mandates

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a radio interview Tuesday that the agency has not changed its mask guidelines urging all schools to encourage students to wear well-fitting face coverings indoors. Walensky also said everyone should wear masks in public indoor settings with substantial risk of coronavirus infection. "Right now, we still have about 290,000 cases every single day, and our hospitalization rates now are higher than they even were at the peak of our Delta surge," Walensky said. Her comments came as a growing number of states, from California to Delaware, this week announced they would be dropping indoor mask mandates now that new cases driven by the Omicron variant are falling.

CNN

4. Canadian 'Freedom Convoy' drivers snarl key U.S. border crossings

Canadian "Freedom Convoy" drivers have spread their protest against COVID-19 restrictions from Ottawa to the U.S. border, where they partially blocked an auto-industry supply-chain lifeline connecting Windsor, Ontario, with Detroit. Canadian-bound traffic across the Ambassador Bridge was shut down early Tuesday. Limited U.S.-bound traffic got through. Protesters in idling trucks and other vehicles also blocked traffic early Tuesday at an access point between Alberta and Montana. Lawmakers in Australia said they feared that local Freedom-Convoy-inspired protests that have continued peacefully for eight days in their country's capital, Canberra, could deteriorate. "Some of these protesters actually want to undermine and overturn democracy," Kristina Keneally of the Australian Labor Party said.

CNN The Washington Post

5. Biden says Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' bill is 'hateful'

President Biden on Tuesday slammed Florida legislation that critics are calling the "Don't Say Gay" bill after the state Senate Education Committee advanced the controversial legislation. The proposed law would ban discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in Florida public schools in primary grade levels, or in any manner that is not "age-appropriate." "I want every member of the LGBTQI+ community — especially the kids who will be impacted by this hateful bill — to know that you are loved and accepted just as you are," Biden tweeted. "I have your back." A day earlier, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signaled support for the bill, saying it was "entirely inappropriate" for teachers to talk about gender identity and sexual orientation in the classroom.

Insider

6. Teen charged in case linked to police killing of Amir Locke

Minnesota prosecutors on Tuesday charged 17-year-old Mekhi Speed with second-degree murder in the case that police were investigating when they conducted a no-knock raid and fatally shot 22-year-old Amir Locke. Officers were looking for Speed, Locke's cousin, when they rushed into a Minneapolis apartment where Locke was sleeping on a couch. An officer fatally shot Locke when he grabbed a handgun, police said. Speed was charged with shooting and killing Otis Elder, 38, in what a witness described as a drug deal that went bad. Locke's death has set off protests and a Monday march on City Hall demanding that Mayor Jacob Frey fire the officer who shot Locke, Mark Hanneman, and interim Police Chief Amelia Huffman. Frey has suspended the use of no-knock warrants in the city.

Star Tribune

7. Household debt surged as home, car prices rose in 2021

U.S. household debt rose by $1.02 trillion in 2021, the most since a $1.06 trillion rise in 2007, according to a report released Tuesday by the New York Federal Reserve. The increase came as Americans borrowed more so they could afford homes, cars, and other big purchases as prices soared. The average U.S. home price jumped by almost 20 percent in 2021, and rising vehicle prices pushed new auto loans to $734 billion, a record. "As car prices have soared, buyers have borrowed more to finance the additional cost," researchers wrote in a separate blog post. So far, households have managed the extra debt as the economy recovers from the coronavirus crisis, and incomes rise.

Reuters The Wall Street Journal

8. U.S. arrests couple for allegedly laundering bitcoin from $4.5 billion heist

The Justice Department announced Tuesday that authorities had arrested a married couple — Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, and Heather Morgan, 31 — in connection with the theft of cryptocurrency currently worth $4.5 billion in a 2016 hack of the Bitfinex exchange. They were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the United States. Prosecutors said Lichtenstein and Morgan lied to financial institutions and virtual currency exchanges about who they were and how they got their bitcoin, and tried to cover their tracks by laundering the stolen funds "through a labyrinth of cryptocurrency transactions," Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said. Law enforcement agencies have seized more than $3.6 billion linked to the crime.

The Hill

9. Snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis wins 1st U.S. gold at Winter Olympics

Lindsey Jacobellis won the women's snowboard cross event at the Beijing Winter Olympics on Wednesday, giving the United States its first gold medal of the Games. Jacobellis, 36, is the oldest snowboarder to medal at the Games, and the oldest American woman to win gold in any sport at the Winter Games. Jacobellis is competing in her fifth Olympic Games, and this is the second medal of her career. She took silver in 2006 after infamously losing her lead in the final by making a celebratory board-grab. She placed fourth in the 2018 Games. Her gold gave Team USA seven medals in all and raises its ranking to 10th place. No. 1 Norway has four golds among nine medals.

USA Today ESPN

10. 'The Power of the Dog' leads Oscar nominations

The Power of the Dog led Academy Awards nominations announced Tuesday with 12 nods, including Best Picture and Best Director. Benedict Cumberbatch received a Best Actor nomination for his role in the Netflix Western drama. His fellow nominees in the category were Javier Bardem (Being the Ricardos), Andrew Garfield (Tick, Tick … Boom!), Will Smith (King Richard), and Denzel Washington (The Tragedy of Macbeth). The Best Actress nominees were Jessica Chastain (The Eyes of Tammy Faye), Olivia Colman (The Lost Daughter), Penélope Cruz (Parallel Mothers), Nicole Kidman (Being the Ricardos), and Kristen Stewart (Spencer). The other films up for Best Picture were Belfast, CODA, Don't Look Up, Drive My Car, Dune, King Richard, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley, and West Side Story.

The Hollywood Reporter The Washington Post

Congressional Republicans spent much of Tuesday fielding questions — or ducking them — about a Republican National Committee censure resolution that accused Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) of helping the House Jan. 6 committee persecute "ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday became the highest-ranking Republican to criticize the censure, calling it both an inappropriate GOP-on-GOP attack and a gross mischaracterization of what happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6. "We saw it happen," he told reporters. "It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election."

Other Senate Republicans criticized the RNC censure as a politically damaging distraction. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), an uncle of RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, said the censure "could not have been a more inappropriate" message. "Anything that my party does that comes across as being stupid is not going to help us," he added.

Inside the RNC, "the resolution has led to an intensive round of finger-pointing," The New York Times reports. The original draft of the resolution, written by Trump ally David Bossie, sought to eject Cheney and Kinzinger from the House GOP caucus, accusing them of helping attack "nonviolent and legal political discourse."

"It is unclear how the words 'legitimate political discourse' came to enter the document as it was edited in Salt Lake City by Bossie, McDaniel, and others," The Washington Post reports. A person familiar with the drafting "attributed the revision to a routing editing decision," the Times adds.

"McDaniel and some of her senior staff began trying to clean up what several allies and advisers viewed as a major blunder on Saturday morning," the Post reports. She defended censuring Cheney and Kinzinger in a Townhall op-ed Tuesday, blaming "media outlets" for "bad faith" and dishonest "cheap political stunts" by "pretending" the RNC believes violence is "legitimate political discourse."

New Jersey's Bill Palatucci was one of the RNC members who complained that the text of the resolution was emailed to members at 1:38 a.m. and not read aloud before the quick voice vote nine hours later. "The authors of the resolution and the leadership at the RNC have nobody to blame but themselves," he told the Times, adding that in his view, the resolution excused "anyone who participated in the riot on Jan. 6."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) just stood up for newly censured GOP Reps. (and Jan. 6 committee members) Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) and Liz Cheney (Wyo.) — and journalists and pundits on Twitter can barely believe what they're seeing.

While speaking to reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday, McConnell broke from the language used by the Republican National Committee last week and described the Jan. 6 Capitol riot as a "violent insurrection," The Washington Post reports. During the Friday vote to formally censure Kinzinger and Cheney, the RNC called the committee investigating the insurrection "a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse."

"We saw it happen," McConnell said Tuesday, referring to Jan. 6. "It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election, from one administration to the next. That's what it was."

He also hit back at the RNC's decision to go after the GOP representatives working on the Capitol riot investigation.

"Traditionally, the view of the national party committees is that we support all members of our party, regardless of their positions on some issues," McConnell continued. "The issue is whether or not the RNC should be sort of singling out members of our party who may have different views of the majority. That's not the job of the RNC."

Reporters were shocked by what they were hearing.

"Pigs just flew," said journalist Lauren Wolfe.

Others, however, felt the minority leader's simple statement not worthy of celebration, or that it was perhaps born of ulterior motives.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Wednesday that it's "time for the state of emergency" around COVID-19 "to wind down," Politico reported.

"What exactly are we doing here? Where are the goalposts? What's the end game?" McConnell asked.

McConnell also said that because "we know the vaccines do not prevent us from catching the current variant of the virus or transmitting it to others," there is "no moral justification for vaccine mandates," though he added that vaccines do "slash the odds of hospitalization" from the Omicron variant.

McConnell has been a consistent champion of the COVID vaccines. In September, McConnell released a 30-second ad in which he drew on his childhood battle with polio to encourage vaccination.

Yet despite McConnell's continued support of urging vaccines, he says he's now ready for the country to return to normal.

"Consider if this variant were its own separate virus that we were just meeting for the very first time without the scar tissue from the prior two years," McConnell said Wednesday. "Nobody would accept anywhere near this much disruption to fight the virus that we're actually facing right now."

According to The New York Times, 295,374 new COVID-19 cases were reported on Feb. 1, and around 2,600 people are dying from the virus every day.

New daily cases are down significantly from a peak of over 900,000 in mid-January but have not yet returned to pre-Omicron levels. Deaths are at their highest level since last winter, when the 7-day average number of daily deaths topped 3,000 for over a month.

Democrats have achieved little in their first year of unified control of Congress, and intra-party spats between moderates and progressives are to blame.

Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have stymied President Biden's legislative agenda. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who aired the party's divisions before the whole country by forcing a futile vote on changing the filibuster, didn't lift a finger to defend them. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has suggested he might vote against whatever watered-down version of the Build Back Better agenda Biden manages to sell Manchin on. He also floated the idea of campaigning for Sinema's primary challenger in 2024.

The good — and bad — news for Democrats is that this mess likely won't last. Republicans are expected to gain control of the House of Representatives after the 2022 midterms and could even reclaim the Senate if they hold vulnerable seats in Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Wisconsin and flip seats in Arizona, Georgia, or Nevada. By next January, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will probably be the one holding the gavel in House. But where Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is a master of keeping his caucus in line, McCarthy can't quite muster the same gravitas when his reps get rowdy.

It's hard to blame him when he has to deal with GOP troublemakers like Reps. Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Madison Cawthorn (N.C.), and Paul Gosar (Ariz.). Still, that lack of control will make a newly Republican House the place to watch for an answer to Biden's recent question: "What are Republicans for?" What do they want to do with power once they've got it?

Perhaps first and foremost, Republicans are for owning the libs.

A big part of the agenda for any Republican-controlled Congress will be performative, Trumpian trolling of the left. Someone will almost certainly read the lyrics to Kid Rock's new anti-Biden anthem into the congressional record. Joe Rogan could be invited testify before the House's health subcommittee. Various members of The Squad will face censure for no good reason. An attempt will be made to ban masks on the House floor.

McConnell won't allow such tomfoolery in the Senate, and respectable, establishment Republicans and Trump skeptics like Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) will almost certainly turn up their noses at most of these stunts. But McCarthy might feel as though he has no choice but to cut the pranksters some slack. Why risk antagonizing several of the party's biggest headline-grabbers over mere symbolic gestures?

Of course, there is a more concrete side to lib-owning, too. On some issues, such as voter ID and (if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade) abortion, Republicans in Congress can get what they want by standing by and letting red-state legislatures do their thing. On other mainstays of the GOP campaign trail in 2022 — like banning critical race theory, defunding universities, punishing Big Tech and woke capital, finishing Trump's wall, and rolling back transgender acceptance — expect a slew of bills on Capitol Hill. (We saw a hint of the potential alliance between the trolls and the culture warriors when Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance said Tuesday that he was "honored" to accept Greene's endorsement.)

When it comes to these proposals, we could see moderate Republicans balk at such a bare-knuckle approach to politics, while the libertarians fret about setting a dangerous precedent for federal overreach. When Vance suggested seizing the assets of the Ford Foundation to penalize the nonprofit for its pro-immigration advocacy, leading libertarian magazine Reason said the idea was based on "anti-conservative, anti-liberty, authoritarian logic." Those hesitations are unlikely to stop a plurality if not majority of congressional Republicans from forging ahead, but as the Democrats so painfully learned over the past year, a single holdout can wreck an entire agenda. Perhaps by January 2024, Republicans will be calling for the head of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) while Manchin lounges on his yacht.

What a new Republican agenda almost certainly won't hinge on is another round of tax cuts. Big corporations have become the bad guys. Railing against big government, all the rage in 2010, is now firmly out of style. The up-and-coming trend goes by the name of "pro-worker conservatism" or "common-good capitalism."

To that end, Vance, Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) have all called for a re-shoring of American industry. Hawley and Romney have both proposed expanded child tax credits (CTC). And this is an issue that could attract support from some Democrats. Sure, a right-wing CTC expansion will be designed to incentivize marriage and stay-at-home parenting, and it certainly won't include free pre-K, but a few blue lawmakers — especially some, like Manchin, in otherwise red states — may nevertheless defect for the sake of the kids.

The pro-worker contingent might well need those votes. The libertarians and establishment types will dig in their heels, but even among the more post-Trumpian segments of the GOP, some lawmakers might find their nerve failing them as they wade out into the unknown waters beyond Fusionist Island. Despite being a leading advocate for "common-good capitalism," for example, Rubio joined libertarian-leaning Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) last February in denouncing Romney's child benefit as "welfare."

It's easy to maintain a unified front while in opposition. Cracks in the Republican façade will begin to appear once they've taken back the House, Senate, or both. And if a GOP candidate wins the White House in 2024, there's no guarantee Republicans won't squander their period of unified control even more thoroughly than Democrats are currently squandering theirs.

Right after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) joined all 50 Republicans to block a filibuster change that would have allowed Democrats expand voting access and curb gerrymandering nationwide, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) was notably tepid on a brewing bipartisan proposal to reform the Electoral Count Act, the 1887 law that former President Donald Trump tried to exploit after the 2020 election.

Compared with the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, tinkering with the Electoral Count Act is "unacceptably insufficient and even offensive," Schumer said in early January. "If you're going to rig the game and then say, 'Oh, we'll count the rigged game accurately,' what good is that?"

Now, however, "Schumer is quietly stoking bipartisan talks about updating the Electoral Count Act," Politico reports. He hasn't committed to either the version being worked on by Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) or a bipartisan overhaul under construction by a core group of nine Senate Republicans led by Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) and seven Democrats, including Manchin and Sinema. "But Schumer's disinterest in quashing the 16-member bipartisan crew is itself notable," Politico says.

Collins says she wants her group's bill to narrowly focus on raising the bar for members of Congress to object to a candidate's electors and clarifying that a vice president can't unilaterally flip states, plus maybe protecting election workers. Some of the Democrats would prefer adding other measures. Schumer is "waiting to see what deal, if anything, the group comes up with before gaming out whether legislation could win 60 votes on the Senate floor," Politico says.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has led the opposition to changing the filibuster and the Democrats' voting rights push, has said he's "happy to take a look at what they come up with," because the 1887 law "clearly is flawed."

Most Democrats agree with McConnell that the Electoral Count Act is flawed, even if "some have chafed at the idea of working on this issue as a replacement for the failed efforts on voting rights legislation," The New Republic reports. "But experts warn that the risk of future election subversion is dire enough to necessitate reform, even if other voting rights measures are unable to pass in Congress."

CORRECTION: A previous version of this post misstated Sen. King's state. It has been corrected. We regret the error.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had little to say on Wednesday about Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer's reported decision to retire at the end of the current term.

At 83, Breyer is the oldest justice on the court, and one of three liberals. During an event in Bowling Green, Kentucky, reporters asked McConnell for his thoughts on Breyer's apparent retirement. "I'm afraid to put the cart before the horse," McConnell replied. "Justice Breyer has not yet made an official announcement. He's entitled to do that whenever he chooses to, and when he does that I'll have a response on his long and distinguished career."

Following the February 2016 death of Justice Antonin Scalia, McConnell — then Senate majority leader — famously blocked former President Barack Obama from filling the vacancy, claiming that because the election was nine months away, it should be up to the next president. This time around, Democrats have control of the Senate, and if the entire caucus votes for President Biden's nominee, there won't be any need for GOP support.

A reporter asked McConnell if Senate Republicans will still try to find a way to block Biden's nominee, a question he dodged. "We don't know who the nominee is yet, so that's [a decision] the president has an opportunity to make should there be a vacancy," McConnell said. "And Justice Breyer will determine when and if there's a vacancy."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was excoriated by several lawmakers for remarks he made about Black voters.

On Wednesday night, Senate Republicans blocked voting rights legislation that Democrats say is necessary to counter voting restrictions being enacted in several GOP-led states, including Texas and Florida. Studies have shown that strict voter ID laws disproportionately impact Black and Latino voters, and voters of color regularly have to wait longer in line to vote.

McConnell spoke to reporters after the bill was blocked, and was asked if he had a message for voters who are worried they won't be able to cast their ballot in the midterms because of restrictions in their state."The concern is misplaced, because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans." McConnell replied.

The condemnation came quickly. "African Americans ARE Americans," Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) tweeted, adding the hashtag #MitchPlease. Charles Booker, a Democrat aiming to unseat Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), said he is "no less American than Mitch McConnell." In a follow-up tweet, Booker stated: "I need you to understand that this is who Mitch McConnell is. Being Black doesn't make you less of an American, no matter what this craven man thinks."

Malcolm Kenyatta, a Democratic state representative in Pennsylvania who is also running for Senate, tweeted that McConnell's "comments suggesting African Americans aren't fully American wasn't a Freudian slip — it was a dog whistle. The same one he has blown for years."

McConnell's office issued a statement on Thursday saying the senator has "consistently pointed to the record-high turnout for all voters in the 2020 election, including African Americans."

The Senate on Wednesday night voted against changing the chamber's filibuster rule, which Democrats say is necessary in order to push through voting rights legislation that is being blocked by Republicans.

The vote was 52-48, with two Democratic senators — Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — joining the Republicans in opposition.

Democrats had hoped to change the filibuster rule so they would only need a simple majority to pass voting rights legislation, rather than the 60 votes necessary to beat a filibuster. Earlier in the night, Senate Republicans blocked a voting rights bill for the fifth time in six months.

The voting rights legislation aims to restore parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that have been chipped away by the Supreme Court, making it easier for people to vote in person and by mail. This is in direct response to Republican-led state legislatures passing restrictive voting laws that Democrats say make it harder for most people, especially minorities, to vote.

The floor debate on the matter lasted about 10 hours. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), whose state imposed strict voting laws in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, declared that this is "a moral moment," while Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) took umbrage to links being made between the GOP and Jim Crow laws. "I am not a racist," he said. "Nor are the people who I know in the state of South Dakota."

President Biden believes that Republicans were not "nearly as obstructionist" during the Obama administration "as they are now," saying during a Wednesday press conference that when he was vice president, lawmakers from both parties could work together to "get some things done."

There were "a number of Republicans we worked closely with even back in those days," Biden said, specifically naming the late Sen. John McCain of Arizona. The difference today is "who seems to [have] a desire to work," Biden continued. "They had an agenda back in the administration when the eight years we were president and vice president. But I don't know what their agenda is now. ... What are they proposing to do about anything?"

During the Obama administration, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blocked the president from filling a Supreme Court seat and several federal judicial seats. Now, Republican lawmakers are keeping voting rights legislation from passing in the Senate, but there was bipartisan support for the passage of Biden's infrastructure bill.

President Biden called out Republican obstructionism during a White House press conference Wednesday, suggesting it was motivated by a a desire to sabotage him politically and by fear of former President Donald Trump.

"I did not anticipate that there'd be such a stalwart effort to make sure that the most important thing was that President Biden didn't get anything done. Think about this. What are Republicans for? What are they for?" he said in response to a question.

He reiterated several times throughout the conference the need for Democrats to more effectively communicate their agenda, an agenda with which he said American voters "overwhelmingly agree."

Later, commenting on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) oppositon to his agenda, Biden said "Mitch has been very clear. He'd do anything to prevent Biden from being a success."

McConnell harshly criticized Biden in a Jan. 12 speech, accusing the president of making misleading claims about state voting laws, using overblown rhetoric, and seeking to steamroll the Senate.

Biden also suggested Republicans' united opposition to his agenda is the result of Trump's continued influence in the party.

"Did you ever think that one man out of office could intimidate an entire party where they're unwilling to take any vote contrary to what he thinks should be taken for fear of being defeated in a primary?" Biden asked.

"I've had five Republican senators ... who've told me that they agree with whatever I'm talking about for them to do. 'But Joe,' [they say,] 'if I do it, I'll get defeated in a primary.'"

When asked to identify the five GOP senators, Biden laughed and said he would "maintain confidentiality."

Trump frequently calls for Republicans who speak out against him to be primaried. One such target is Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who drew Trump's ire when he reufesed to help Trump overturn the 2020 election. Three pro-Trump candidates are challenging Thune for the Republican nomination.

Democrats forcing a change to the filibuster to push through President Biden's voting rights bill would usher in a "nuclear winter," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) ominously claimed on Wednesday, ABC News reported.

"The Senate in nuclear winter would not be a hospitable place for either side ... if the majority chooses to end the filibuster, if they choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic debate, then the fighting and the bitterness and the gridlock will only get worse," McConnell said, according to The Hill.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) blasted McConnell for his statement that "states are not engaging in trying to suppress voters whatsoever." Schumer called the claim McConnell's "big lie," comparable to and stemming from former President Donald Trump's baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.

The Senate plans to vote on the rule change Wednesday evening, but it is unlikely to pass. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have both announced their opposition to the measure, leaving Democrats with only 48 votes.

Despite not having the votes, Schumer is forging ahead. "Win, lose or draw, we are going to vote," he said. "[Republican Senators have] got to come down on the floor and defend their opposition to voting rights."

Democrats' attempts to circumvent the filibuster to pass a major voting rights bill are "a rule-breaking power grab" that would not be "harmless" or "cost-free," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday.

But what exactly are Democrats proposing?

Senate rules stipulate that 60 votes are needed to end debate on a bill — a procedure known as "cloture." As long as debate remains open, senators can filibuster, delaying or even preventing the passage of the legislation in question.

But, the Senate also has the power to change its own rules at any time with a simple majority vote.

In this case, changing the rules could mean a one-time exception limited to this particular bill — as Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) has suggested — or a rule change allowing cloture by a simple, 51-vote majority for all future voting rights bills. Lowering the cloture threshold in this manner is known as the "nuclear option."

It's unlikely to happen. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) both oppose the rule change, leaving Democrats with only 48 votes.

If it were to happen, though, it would be the third use of the "nuclear option" in Senate history.

The first was in 2013, when then-Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) allowed cloture by simple majority "for all nominations other than for the Supreme Court." This change enabled Reid to overcome Republican filibusters that were holding up several of then-President Barack Obama's nominees, NY1 reported.

At the time, McConnell threatened, "You'll regret this, and you may regret this a lot sooner than you think."

McConnell made good on his word in 2017 when he expanded Reid's carveout to include Supreme Court nominees. This ended what McConnell called the "first, and last, partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court justice," according to NPR. Democrats filibustered the nomination of Neil Gorsuch after McConnell refused to hold confirmation hearings for Obama nominee Merrick Garland.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that even if Democrats' attempts to circumvent the filibuster fail, they will not be "harmless" or "cost-free," ABC News reported.

The Senate began debating President Biden's ambitious — and likely doomed — voting rights legislation Tuesday. Under current Senate rules, Democrats would need a supermajority of 60 votes to stop a GOP filibuster.

All 50 Senate Republicans oppose the legislation.

Democrats originally introduced two voting rights bills — the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act — but the House combined the two into one bill, which is now before the Senate.

In a Jan. 11 speech, Biden called on Senate Democrats to alter the rules to allow themselves to end the filibuster with a simple, 51-vote majority. This rule change would itself require only 51 votes, but Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) both oppose the carveout.

Politico reported Saturday that Sinema said she supports the bill but opposes changing the filibuster because Republicans could use the same tactic to repeal the legislation next time they're in the majority.

McConnell warned that even though Democrats' efforts were likely to fail, their actions could still undermine democratic norms and increase the probability that lawmakers from both parties will make similar attempts in the future.

"Too many of our colleagues across the aisle still want to respond to a 50-50 Senate with a rule-breaking power grab," he said Tuesday, adding that "voting to break this institution will not be a free vote or a harmless action, even if efforts fail."

"Voting to break the Senate is not cost-free, just because of a bipartisan majority of your colleagues have the wisdom to stop you," he said.

In 2017, McConnell implemented a carveout similar to the one he now opposes to end a Democratic filibuster of then-Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.