McConnell: Trump's "gotten better" because he doesn't pick on me anymore
Donald Trump has ridden an unbroken streak of using his weaponized Twitter feed to chaotic effect, attacking everything from the First Amendment to the entire religion of Islam, but Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is fine with it as long as Trump isn’t attacking him. During an interview with Axios’ Mike Allen, McConnell was asked […]

During an interview with Axios’ Mike Allen, McConnell was asked how he deals with Trump’s Twitter attacks, and McConnell told Allen that Trump’s tweets about himself were “not my favorite,” but that Trump has “gotten better.”
A stunned Allen asked McConnell “in what sense” Trump has gotten better, and McConnell paused, smirked awkwardly, and replied, “We’re doing just fine.”
McConnell’s bar for Twitter success is exceedingly low, as Trump has used his Twitter feed to continue his unrelenting attacks on the free press, to campaign for an accused child molester, make an apparent confession that he obstructed justice, politicize an unfolding railroad tragedy, engage in open workplace sexual harassment against one of McConnell’s Senate colleagues, confuse speakers of conversational English, and attack the FBI that’s investigating him.
And that’s just this month.
Even by McConnell’s narrow standards, Trump has a lot to make up for. He has previously attacked McConnell as a failure, and even amplified calls for McConnell to step down as majority leader:
The only problem I have with Mitch McConnell is that, after hearing Repeal & Replace for 7 years, he failed!That should NEVER have happened!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 24, 2017
Trump fires new warning shot at McConnell, leaves door open on whether he should step down https://t.co/tJIRc0usWl
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) August 11, 2017
The fact that McConnell thinks Trump has “gotten better” simply because he’s stopped attacking Mitch McConnell illustrates the central premise of Republican politics. No matter how much Republicans enable and abet Trump in harming Americans, it’s all OK as long as they’re “doing fine.”
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