Trump has officially declared war on Mitch McConnell

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published 9 August 2017

War has officially broken out between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and President Trump. While Trump had formerly been content to needle Congress broadly about its lack of major legislative accomplishments, McConnell reached a breaking point Monday, publicly admonishing Trump. "Our new president, of course, has not been in this line of work before," McConnell said at a Rotary Club meeting in Kentucky. "I think [Trump] had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process."

On Wednesday, Trump hit back:

Trump's social media director Dan Scavino Jr. got in on the action too:

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"This is stunning," Politico wrote. "Mitch McConnell is the lynchpin to whatever Donald Trump wants to get done on Capitol Hill. Sure, health care did not go as the White House wanted it to. They might get there in the future, they might not. But McConnell is not going anywhere for a very long time, he commands respect from all Republican senators and controls the Senate floor."

And now, it's his move.

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.