McConnell defends past Trump comments: ‘We are all on the same team now’

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday defended comments he made following the 2020 election where he privately slammed Donald Trump as "stupid" and "despicable."

“Whatever I may have said about President Trump pales in comparison to what JD Vance, Lindsey Graham, and others have said about him, but we are all on the same team now,” McConnell said in a statement to POLITICO.

The nearly four-year-old remarks were revealed Thursday in an Associated Press report on excerpts of an upcoming biography on McConnell, “The Price of Power,” by the outlet’s deputy Washington bureau chief Michael Tackett. The book, set to publish at the end of the month, draws from years of interviews with the Senate leader and his recorded diaries.

McConnell made the disparaging comments about the former president leading up to the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Trump was making a bid to overturn the 2020 election.

The Kentucky Republican said Trump was "stupid as well as being ill-tempered," and a "despicable human being" in private remarks that were recorded, according to the Associated Press report.

"It's not just the Democrats who are counting the days" until Trump leaves office, McConnell said.

“And for a narcissist like him,” McConnell continued, “that’s been really hard to take, and so his behavior since the election has been even worse, by far, than it was before, because he has no filter now at all.”

McConnell’s relationship with Trump fell apart after the longtime Senate leader recognized President Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election. The bad blood between the two simmered this year when McConnell endorsed Trump for president in the 2024 race.

Republican Sens. JD Vance and Lindsey Graham have not always seen eye to eye with the former president, with Vance saying in 2016 that he “can’t stomach” Trump when describing who to vote for and Graham calling Trump a “jackass” while the two were rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in 2015. Both senators have since made amends with Trump.

McConnell announced his exit as the Senate’s GOP leader in February, saying he does not plan on running for another term. McConnell plans to serve out the rest of his current term until 2026.