Former President Donald Trump, according to a new book, brutally chastised Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for upholding the filibuster throughout his term.
“He’s a stupid person. I don’t think he’s smart enough,” Trump said of McConnell according to Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker’s book “I Alone Can Fix It.”
“I tried to convince Mitch McConnell to get rid of the filibuster, to terminate it so that we would get everything, and he was a knucklehead and he didn’t do it,” Trump added.
Trump’s criticism of McConnell dates back to 2017 “Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress when Trump entered office, with a 52-seat majority in the Senate. Trump pushed for the filibuster to be abolished in order to push through his agenda. The minority party often employs this rule to postpone or prevent bills from being passed by the majority.
“McConnell killed the filibuster in April 2017 to advance Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, after Democrats expressed their opposition to his confirmation, invoking what is known as the “nuclear option,” which ends debate via a simple majority. But whenever Trump’s policy proposals, such as funding for a southern border ‘wall,’ stalled in Congress, the president would call on McConnell to go ‘nuclear.’ McConnell refused. Trump gave up when Democrats eventually won the House in the 2018 midterm elections, ending the GOP’s legislative majority.”
Trump is said to have enjoyed his interview with the book’s authors. “For some sick reason I enjoyed it,” he said.
The book also revealed that Trump called German Chancellor Angela Merkel “that b**ch” and used the derogatory epithet “krauts” to refer to Germans.
On Tuesday, Washington Post reporters Leonnig and Rucker shared the information from an excerpt of their new book.
In their book, the Post journalists describe an episode in which Trump was purportedly chatting to aides and advisors in the Oval Office about NATO and the US-German alliance when he referred to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has led her country since 2005, as “that b**** Merkel.”
Trump also addressed his late father, Fred Trump, who was of German descent.
“‘I know the f***ing krauts,’ the president added, using a derogatory term for German soldiers from World War I and World War II,” Leonnig and Rucker write.
“Trump then pointed to a framed photograph of his father, Fred Trump, displayed on the table behind the Resolute Desk and said, ‘I was raised by the biggest kraut of them all.’”
According to a Trump spokeswoman, the former president denied making those remarks.
