“They had their shot in the election… But in this country when you win the election you get to make policy. I always remind people, winners make policy and losers go home.”
— Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), quoted by The Hill, in response to nearly 1,000 protesters who showed up for his speech.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that Republicans will repeal and replace the health care law and overhaul the tax code without Democratic help or votes, the AP reports.
Said McConnell: “It’s clear that in the early months it’s going to be a Republicans-only exercise. We don’t expect any Democratic cooperation on the replacement of Obamacare, we don’t expect any Democratic cooperation on tax reform.”
Caitlin Owens: “Republicans can’t do everything they want to on health care without Democratic votes, under Senate rules. They can do a lot through a process called budget reconciliation, which allows them to pass budget-related policy with just 51 votes. But they can’t touch central elements of Obamacare.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told the Weekly Standard that President Trump’s approval rating would be “10 to 15 points higher if he allowed himself to stay on message.”
McConnell said he likes “what the president is doing,” citing deregulation efforts, his Supreme Court nominee, and Cabinet picks. But “what he’s saying makes everything harder.”
“It would be, I think, easier for us to succeed were there fewer daily tweets.”
— Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), quoted by the Wall Street Journal.
First Read: “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is a shrewd tactician… But we’re not sure if his decision to silence Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) for reading Coretta Scott King’s letter opposing Jeff Sessions from back in the 1980s was a smart play.”
“If the goal was to keep people from reading/hearing that letter, well, that backfired…. If the goal was to keep Warren from repeating her message, well, that didn’t work… And if the goal was to help Sessions with his Democratic colleagues, well, that didn’t go over well, either.”
Rick Klein: “Sessions will still be confirmed as attorney general on Wednesday, and Warren will be allowed to speak on the Senate floor again after that happens. The lasting impact of this week in the Senate, however, may be massive.”
“For starters, lamentations of fierce partisanship resulted in the formal rebuke and silencing of a liberal hero – and with no apparent larger reason. (Senators have said worse of each other, and Republicans have the ultimate silencing weapon – the majority.) More broadly, the organizing energy that began outside of Washington now has outlet inside of it. Between Betsy DeVos, Sessions, and now Andrew Puzder, the Trump Cabinet has woken up the left without even actually doing anything.”
New York Times: “Mr. McConnell, a Kentucky Republican and the majority leader, says he and his Senate Republican colleagues are quite satisfied with the Trump team so far. In fact, he said, they are reassured by signs that President Trump is going to hew to a conservative agenda after early fears that the president — a relatively unknown quantity to most elected Republicans — might not really be one of them.”
Said McConnell: “I think there is a high level of satisfaction with the new administration. Our members are not obsessed with the daily tweets, but are looking at the results.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “distanced himself from President Trump’s positions on Russia, voter fraud and the travel ban, while criticizing the president for attacking a federal judge,” Politico reports.
Said McConnell: “It is best not to single out judges. We all get disappointed from time to time. I think it is best to avoid criticizing them individually.”
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “all but ruled out the possibility of a change to the filibuster rule this year,” The Hill reports.
McConnell made his comment “one day after President Trump said he wants Senate Republicans to strip Democrats of the power to filibuster Supreme Court nominees if they attempt to block his pick.”
Said McConnell: “Senate rules are a matter for the Senate and a lot of other people have opinions. We’ve already adopted the rules for this Congress at the beginning of the year. Basically we didn’t adopt any because in the Senate rules are permanent, unlike the House which every two year adopts a new set of rules. We don’t.”
“We got results that would not have been possible without a negotiating partner like Joe Biden. Obviously, I don’t always agree with him, but I do trust him, implicitly. He doesn’t break his word, he doesn’t waste time telling me why I’m wrong… There’s a reason ‘Get Joe on the phone’ is shorthand for ‘Time to get serious’ in my office.”
— Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), in a moving tribute to Vice President Joe Biden.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) broke with President-elect Donald Trump’s suggestion that flag burners go to jail or lose their citizenship, The Hill reports.
Said McConnell: “The Supreme Court has held that that activity is a protected First Amendment right. In this country, we have a long history of protecting unpleasant speech.”
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “signaled the Senate would move swiftly to repeal Obamacare now that the GOP Congress will have a Republican president next year,” Politico reports.
Said McConnell: “It’s pretty high on our agenda as you know. I would be shocked if we didn’t move forward and keep our commitment to the American people.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has made his strongest statement yet on his party’s presidential nominee, telling a rally in his home state that “we need a new president, Donald Trump, to be the most powerful Republican in America,” the AP reports.
“McConnell has warned repeatedly that Republicans could lose control of the Senate this year as they are forced to defend a handful of seats in swing states across the country. Since endorsing Trump shortly after he secured the nomination, McConnell has been mostly silent about the nominee so that vulnerable incumbents — like New Hampshire’s Kelly Ayotte — could distance themselves from Trump and his increasingly erratic comments.”
“If you’re interested in the presidential election, you might as well get up and leave, because I don’t have any observations to make on that.”
— Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), quoted by the Lexington Herald Leader, to an audience in his home state.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “is counseling individual senators and candidates about how to position themselves alongside Trump — without dictating strategy — as he talks them through the political perils of this election cycle,” Politico reports.
“Officials at the National Republican Senatorial Committee spent all weekend talking to candidates and campaign aides, urging them to be prepared to talk about Trump wherever they go but declining to offer explicit advice on whether Republicans should pull their support from Trump.”
“Republicans are still waiting for later this week to see just how bad the damage is in battleground states before they consider reevaluating their support for the Republican nominee, who was caught on tape in 2005 boasting about sexual conquests and describing grabbing women’s genitals.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “unveiled legislation to prevent a government shutdown next weekend and provide more than $1 billion to battle the Zika virus. It also would provide $500 million to help Louisiana rebuild from last month’s devastating floods,” the AP reports.
“But Democrats immediately blasted the proposal for failing to fund one of their top priorities: money to help Flint, Michigan, repair its lead-tainted water system.”
“McConnell’s move could set up a showdown vote next week. Democrats said they would likely filibuster the measure since it omits a bipartisan plan to provide $220 million to help Flint and other cities with lead emergencies replace pipes and take other steps to clean their water.”
Playbook: “It’s not really in anyone’s interest to shut down the government less than two months before Election Day. Nobody is predicting that this is going to lead to a shutdown. They have a week — the government doesn’t shut down until next Friday — and Congress rarely does anything until it absolutely has to.”
First Read: “If Trump’s poll position doesn’t soon change, there will be two key GOP voices that everyone will want to hear from, especially after this campaign shakeup — House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Those two men have the potential power to declare the presidential race over, and to say that the Republican Party’s energies and resources should be devoted to saving the GOP House and Senate majorities. We’re not saying that moment is here or even a week or two away. But it’s definitely a story to watch.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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