Former president Donald Trump said Monday that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) is “not strong enough” to block President Joe Biden’s agenda, which he likened to the progressive policy platform championed by Senator Bernie Sanders “on steroids.”
During an interview with Fox News’ The Faulkner Focus, Trump criticized the new administration over its handling of the crisis at the southern border and added that the Democrats are “going to destroy our country in other ways, too.”
He said Democrats would pack the Supreme Court, implement big tax increases and take away Americans’ guns and there would be “no stopping them.”
“I never thought that Biden in a million years would be worse — nobody did — would be far worse than Bernie Sanders. This is Bernie Sanders on steroids,” Trump said.
He added: “In our leadership, Mitch isn’t strong enough to stop people. Never was. That’s like one of the big secrets, but he had the majority, but now that he’s not in the majority, he’s not — he’s not doing his thing.”
“He’s not doing what he should be doing,” Trump added.
Earlier this month, the Senate passed Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID response bill using budget reconciliation. The process allowed Democrats to advance the measure with just a simple majority and therefore without support from McConnell or other GOP senators.
Trump’s comments come days after McConnell threatened to use “every” rule available to advance conservative policies if Democrats choose to eliminate the filibuster, allowing legislation to pass with a simple majority in place of a 60-vote threshold.
“Let me say this very clearly for all 99 of my colleagues: nobody serving in this chamber can even begin to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like,” McConnell said in a floor speech.
“As soon as Republicans wound up back in the saddle, we wouldn’t just erase every liberal change that hurt the country—we’d strengthen America with all kinds of conservative policies with zero input from the other side,” McConnell added.
He suggested a Republican-majority Senate would pass national right-to-work legislation, defund Planned Parenthood and sanctuary cities “on day one,” allow concealed carry in all 50 states, and more.