CNN
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It’s develop into a throwaway line at former President Donald Trump’s marketing campaign rallies: GOP senators should boot Mitch McConnell from the management place he’s held longer than any Republican in American historical past.

However McConnell has a message.

“I’ve the votes,” the Senate GOP chief stated bluntly, indicating he’s locked down sufficient assist to say a brand new feat: The longest-serving Senate celebration chief ever, a document held by Democrat Mike Mansfield for greater than 4 a long time and which McConnell would surpass within the subsequent Congress.

But whether or not he’s within the minority or majority subsequent 12 months – and if he continues to function GOP chief after 2024 – are completely different questions altogether.

In a wide-ranging interview with CNN, McConnell weighed in on his outlook for the high-stakes battle for management of the Senate and warned President Joe Biden about how his nominees can be dealt with in a GOP majority. The GOP chief expressed his choice for a brand new Nebraska senator, defended votes that put him at odds with Republicans within the 50-50 Senate and steered away from Trump’s brazen private assaults in opposition to him and his spouse, Elaine Chao – in an obvious try to keep away from a distracting struggle with the previous President earlier than the midterms.

And as Republicans develop nervous about their prospects of retaking the Senate, particularly after allegations that Georgia Republican nominee Herschel Walker paid for a lady to have an abortion 13 years in the past, the GOP chief indicated his perception that the battle for almost all is a real “cliffhanger” and that it’s too early to know if the 2022 cycle will flip right into a GOP debacle like 2010 and 2012 when lackluster general-election candidates value his celebration a critical shot on the Senate majority.

“It was clearly a problem in 2010 and 2012, with Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock,” McConnell stated, referring to GOP candidates in Nevada, Delaware, Missouri and Indiana, respectively, who misplaced normal election matchups. “So it was clearly an issue in 2010 and 2012. Whether or not it’s a problem, whether or not it’s deadly or an enormous downside this 12 months, we’ll discover out” subsequent month.

McConnell, who has been devoting huge time to make sure his high-spending tremendous PAC, the Senate Management Fund, continues to spend staggering sums throughout the airwaves within the closing weeks of the midterm elections, indicated that he plans to face by the anti-abortion Walker who has denied beautiful allegations that one of many moms of his 4 youngsters had an abortion at his request.

“I feel we’re going to stay with Walker and all the trouble we put in via SLF, we’re going take all of it the way in which to the tip,” McConnell stated when requested if he had issues concerning the revelations, arguing as an alternative he believed the election would activate Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock’s alliance with Biden.

“I discuss to him pretty usually,” McConnell stated of Walker, the previous soccer star and novice candidate pushed into the race by Trump and backed by the GOP chief within the major. “I feel they’re going to hold in there and scrap to the end.”

Whereas McConnell and Trump have been at sharp odds because the GOP chief forged him as “virtually and morally accountable” for the January 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol, regardless of voting to acquit him at his impeachment trial, the Senate GOP chief has taken pains to keep away from mentioning the previous President or have interaction in a tit-for-tat with Trump and his highly effective megaphone. In a current tirade on his social media web page, Trump stated McConnell has “a loss of life want,” attacking his votes on unspecified payments and saying the GOP chief is “keen to take the nation down with him.”

“I don’t have something to say about that,” McConnell stated concerning the assault in opposition to him, his first response to the episode.

In the identical put up, Trump issued a racially charged assault in opposition to Chao, a naturalized American citizen who was born in Taiwan and likewise served as Trump’s secretary of transportation, calling her McConnell’s “China loving spouse, Coco Chow.”

Requested if the racist remark about his spouse was acceptable, McConnell didn’t wish to reply to it.

“The one time I’ve responded to the President, I feel, since he left workplace is when he gave me my favourite nickname – Outdated Crow – which I thought-about a praise and in spite of everything, it was Henry Clay’s favourite bourbon.” He declined to remark additional on the matter.

(The interview was performed Friday earlier than a member of his convention, Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, made racially charged remarks at a Trump rally over the weekend.)

With lower than a month to the midterms, the GOP chief is aware of full properly {that a} back-and-forth with the previous President may distract the celebration’s focus at a vital time. And for McConnell, he says he’s not involved {that a} rising variety of Republicans act like Trump somewhat than hew to the normal GOP orthodoxy espoused by the likes of Rep. Liz Cheney, who misplaced her Wyoming major this 12 months after her battle over Trump’s “stolen” election lies. His solely purpose, he stated, is successful elections.

“I don’t have a litmus take a look at,” McConnell stated when requested if he desires a celebration extra in step with Trump or with Cheney. “I’m for those who get the Republican nomination, and for successful, as a result of if we win we get to resolve what the agenda is, and so they don’t.”

However Trump doesn’t get a vote in a secret-ballot election within the Senate after the November midterms, and McConnell’s reelection to the highest put up is just about a lock – whether or not they win or lose in subsequent month’s elections, in keeping with interviews with greater than two dozen GOP senators.

But publicly and privately, the curiosity in his Senate seat – and his management put up – has begun to sprout. On Capitol Hill, the timing of McConnell’s resolution of when he could step apart as chief may have a profound impression on the management race to succeed him. That’s as a result of the present whip – John Thune of South Dakota – is time period restricted within the No. 2 place on the finish of the following Congress.

If McConnell have been to step other than his prime place on the finish of 118th Congress, which ends in January 2025, it may give Thune a leg-up in a secret-ballot election. But when McConnell waits for longer to step apart, the following No. 2 might be seen as a frontrunner within the race.

As they await McConnell’s resolution, his potential successors-in-waiting are signaling curiosity within the prime job if the GOP chief steps apart.

“Properly, certain,” Thune stated when requested if he’s within the GOP leaders’ job when McConnell steps apart. “I imply, who wouldn’t be, proper?”

“If there’s a chance, that’s one thing I’d be thinking about pursuing,” stated Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a former GOP whip and present member of McConnell’s management group.

“I’m going to proceed to serve the convention in any means that they really feel is beneficial,” Sen. John Barrasso, the Wyoming Republican and presently the No. 3 in management, stated when requested if he’s thinking about operating for chief.

There are indicators that McConnell might be getting ready for the tip of his time period. Final 12 months, he backed an effort within the state legislature to alter Kentucky regulation on how successors to Senate seats might be named. The brand new McConnell-backed regulation would require the governor – who’s presently a Democrat – to choose a successor from the identical political celebration because the departing senator.

Privately, there’s curiosity in his seat from his state’s US Home delegation, together with Rep. Andy Barr, a Republican who has privately expressed critical curiosity within the seat if it opens up, in keeping with sources near the GOP congressman, with the area title “BarrForSenate” already secured in case he decides to run. Different members of the delegation have saved the choice open as properly.

Within the interview, the 80-year-old McConnell put to relaxation hypothesis that he may reduce his present Senate time period quick and stop after the following Congress. His time period ends in January 2027.

“Oh, I’m definitely going to finish the time period I used to be elected to by the folks of Kentucky, no query about that,” McConnell stated of the seat he’s held since 1985.

However requested if he would keep because the Republican chief via his present Senate time period, McConnell wouldn’t say.

“I’m not going to go there,” the GOP chief stated. “I’m assured I’ll be reelected to a different two-year time period.”

On his choice for a possible successor for the management job, McConnell would solely say: “I feel there are many individuals who may step in and do that job.”

And he brushed again a query about whether or not he has decided about operating once more.

“I’m within the second 12 months of my time period, for God’s sake,” the GOP chief stated.

However despite the fact that polls in Kentucky have lengthy proven his reputation lagging, Republicans within the state say he may win once more if he desires to run – regardless of his battle with Trump.

“The factor about Mitch McConnell: his polling has by no means been actually good,” stated Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican. “However he’s such politician that on Election Day, he all the time makes certain that his opponent is much less well-liked than he’s.”

Comer added: “He’s a vicious politician in battle, and that has served him properly over time.”

Sustaining assist inside his convention might be important to protecting his management place. Whereas most Republicans indicated they again the GOP chief sustaining his management put up, a number of Republican senators declined to commit, together with Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, John Kennedy of Louisiana, fellow Kentuckian Rand Paul and Rick Scott of Florida, the Nationwide Republican Senatorial Committee chairman who has been at odds with McConnell over technique this 12 months.

“There’ll be an election and we’ll determine it out,” Scott stated when requested if he’d again McConnell once more.

McConnell, for his half, stated this when requested if he had confidence within the job Scott is doing on the NRSC: “I don’t have any criticism of Rick. I feel they’re doing the very best they will.”

McConnell’s fingerprints are throughout each the Senate races at play within the midterms and over potential newcomers as properly. In Nebraska, the place Sen. Ben Sasse simply made identified his plans to resign by 12 months’s finish and take a job because the president of the College of Florida, McConnell has made his choice for Sasse’s successor identified. He has personally urged the outgoing Nebraska governor, Pete Ricketts, to hunt the seat, calling him a “nice alternative.”

“I’ve talked to Gov. Ricketts,” McConnell stated. “We’re hoping that he’ll find yourself within the Senate. Precisely how that occurs beneath Nebraska regulation is but to be decided.”

“If that have been the way in which it labored out I feel it’d be a clean transition,” McConnell added of Ricketts taking the spot.

Ricketts stated in an announcement that he would go away the appointment resolution to the following governor however didn’t categorical whether or not he had curiosity in in search of the seat.

But when Republicans take again the Senate, McConnell would discover himself once more as majority chief in opposition to a Democratic President – as he was with then-President Barack Obama after the 2014 midterms.

In a career-defining transfer already being felt throughout American society, McConnell took the unprecedented step and refused in 2016 to carry a vote on Merrick Garland, Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court docket, protecting open the seat for greater than a 12 months and permitting Trump to shift the steadiness of the court docket markedly to the correct with the number of conservative Neil Gorsuch.

Within the interview, McConnell declined to say if he would even think about holding a vote on a Biden Supreme Court docket nominee ought to a emptiness come up subsequent 12 months in a GOP majority. As a substitute, he warned that Biden should discuss to Republicans as he goes about making any variety of government and judicial department appointments.

“Most of the appointments the President has made in the course of the first two years have been fairly excessive,” McConnell stated. “I’m not simply speaking about judges. I’m speaking concerning the boards and commissions. And I feel our view can be on appointments that we have to discuss it extra and perhaps have some suggestions to make ourselves earlier than taking place that path.”

McConnell stated Republicans and the White Home “want to speak about appointments, somewhat than simply reacting to them.”

If Republicans take again the bulk, McConnell has contended that they might “search for issues throughout the 40-yard-line.” However that proposition might be shortly put to the take a look at, with some Home Republicans already speaking about doubtlessly impeaching Biden and launching an inquiry in opposition to his secretary of homeland safety, Alejandro Mayorkas.

The GOP chief wouldn’t say if he believes Home Republicans ought to tamp down that impeachment discuss.

“I don’t have any recommendation to present the Home Republicans,” he stated, as an alternative arguing {that a} GOP majority would flip Biden right into a average.

However whilst he and Biden reduce fiscal offers within the Obama presidency, and far was stated about their shut relationship, the 2 barely discuss, with McConnell saying: “I don’t even bear in mind” the final time they spoke. “It’s been some time.”

Throughout this Congress, the longest interval of a 50-50 Senate within the nation’s historical past, McConnell has battled party-line Democratic efforts to move their Covid-19 aid laws and the climate-and-health regulation, however he’s had had a hand in a few of the greatest bipartisan achievements of Biden’s time in workplace. He endorsed a significant infrastructure regulation, the primary gun violence laws in a technology and a measure to bolster manufacturing of semi-conductor chips – all points that put him at odds with a majority of his convention, Home Republican leaders and Trump himself.

Sen. Mike Braun, an Indiana Republican, stated “sure” he had issues with the GOP chief’s positions on these points.

“Are you able to recall any Democrat has ever voted on a Republican proposal?” Braun requested, whereas additionally criticizing the GOP chief for not placing ahead an election-year agenda for Republicans to debate on the marketing campaign path.

“I feel if you happen to’re going to attraction to independents, and so they maintain the political energy on this nation, they need one thing greater than ‘I’ll let you know after the election,’ ” Braun stated.

McConnell contends that even when he was majority chief, he didn’t ascribe to the notion that each invoice have to be supported by a majority of Senate Republicans earlier than he put it on the ground. And when Obama was President, he reduce three fiscal offers with Biden – despite the fact that it received pushback from many in his celebration.

“I by no means assume it’s to the benefit of the nation or my celebration to be perceived as unwilling to do something in any respect,” McConnell stated in defending his strategy.

Getting again to the bulk and setting the agenda would require a one-seat web pickup, however that has confirmed to be an infinite problem given the tough Senate map his celebration faces – regardless of the favorable midterm setting for the GOP.

By the tip of the cycle, McConnell’s Senate Management Fund may have spent $209 million in advertisements throughout the nation, with its affiliated nonprofit group, One Nation, spending one other $71 million, in keeping with knowledge from AdImpact.

“He has raised the overwhelming amount of cash that’s supporting Republican candidates throughout the nation,” Sen. Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, stated. “He has accomplished his job.”

Within the closing weeks of the marketing campaign, his group has not opted to spend sizable sums to bolster GOP candidate Blake Masters in Arizona, although McConnell contends that’s the results of a dialogue over “useful resource allocation” with a significant Republican donor, Peter Thiel, and his exterior group, taking a look at that race as an alternative. Masters, he stated, has a “good probability of successful.”

“I’ve received loads of bases to cowl,” he stated, pointing to the important thing battleground states throughout the map.

“Many of those normal election campaigns have been woefully underfunded, not due to the NRSC, however due to the candidates’ campaigns themselves,” McConnell stated. “And we definitely – SLF has definitely – carried the lion’s share of load.”