Why Mitch McConnell Backed Away From Trying To Convict Trump

Mitch McConnell really wanted to convict Donald Trump and ban him from ever running for office again, but he was forced to back off.  In fact, he just voted for a motion that declared that convicting Trump at this point would be unconstitutional.  That represents a stunning reversal by McConnell, because earlier this month he was telling other Republicans that he wanted Trump gone.  Putting the pieces together, it appears that McConnell really did try to get to 67 votes so that Trump would be convicted, but political reality forced him to back down in a major way.  Now a weakened McConnell will try to move forward as the minority leader in the Senate, and the future of his political career is very much in doubt.

Once the riot at the U.S. Capitol happened on January 6th, McConnell decided that he was done with Trump and never wanted to speak to him again

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he never wants to speak to President Donald Trump again following a violent insurrection at the US Capitol on Wednesday, The Washington Post reported.

But of course at that point they had already not spoken for quite some time.

According to McConnell, the last time the two spoke was all the way back on December 15th

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that he hasn’t spoken to former President Trump since the middle of December, confirming news reports that the Senate GOP leader has cut off personal contact with the former president.

“The last time I spoke with him was the day after I declared that Biden had obviously won the election after the Electoral College [voted on] Dec. 14. It would have been Dec. 15,” McConnell told reporters.

Not content to keep his feud with Trump private, McConnell took it to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.