Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have issued a joint statement on Friday condemning Kamala Harris for using the word “fascist,” saying it could invite another assassination attempt.
Harris hasn’t used the word fascist to describe Trump, but when asked by CNN if she thinks he’s a fascist, she said, “Yes, I do.”
Johnson and McConnell made no mention of Trump’s rhetoric in their statement, even while in Arizona Trump said, “She’s a marxist, communist, fascist, socialist.”
It was only a few days ago that CNN reported on McConnell’s upcoming biography in which he excoriated his own party, saying, the “MAGA movement is completely wrong” and that Ronald Reagan “wouldn’t recognize” the party today.
In the book, McConnell said that Trump had “done a lot of damage to our party’s image and our ability to compete.”
The Kentucky Republican did not mince words, calling Trump a “sleazeball,” a “narcissist” and saying that the former president is “stupid as well as being ill-tempered.” He added that Trump is “not very smart, irascible, nasty, just about every quality you would not want somebody to have.”
McConnell cried while addressing his staff in the hours after the January 2021 attack on the Capitol. “You are my staff, and you are my responsibility,” he told them. “You are my family, and I hate the fact that you had to go through this.”
When asked about his comments on the book, he answered, “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.”