'Not equipped mentally': Trump rips Mitch McConnell after votes against Cabinet picks

David Catanese, Lexington Herald-Leader on Feb 13, 2025

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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump laced into Mitch McConnell for his mental acuity and accused him of letting the Republican Party “go to hell,” unleashing a rhetorical tirade against the Kentucky senator hours after he voted against Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the nation’s health department.

“I feel sorry for Mitch ... He wanted to go to the end and he wanted to stay leader. He’s not equipped mentally, he wasn’t equipped 10 years ago mentally in my opinion,” Trump said seated from his desk in the Oval Office Thursday afternoon.

“I was the one that got him to drop out of the leadership position, so he can’t love me ... I don’t know anything about he had polio,” Trump added. “He shouldn’t have been leader, he knows that.”

McConnell is well-known to have survived polio as a child, even citing its “lingering effects” as the reason for a fall last week.

The verbal assault came in response to McConnell’s string of votes against Trump and his party.

In the past three weeks, McConnell has voted against Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary, Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence and Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

“Mr. Kennedy failed to prove he is the best possible person to lead America’s largest health agency. As he takes office, I sincerely hope Mr. Kennedy will choose not to sow further doubt and division but to restore trust in our public health institutions,” McConnell said earlier Thursday.

It’s amounted to a pointed but lonely break with Trump and his administration at a time when most Republicans are falling in line with the new president publicly even if they have private reservations and concerns about his actions and personnel choices.

McConnell was the only Republican to vote against Gabbard and Kennedy. GOP Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins joined him in opposing Hegseth. All three were confirmed.

Trump and McConnell have feuded for years, most intensely following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, which McConnell laid at the feet of the defeated president.

McConnell described Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 election as “stupid as well as being ill-tempered,” a “despicable human being” and a “narcissist,” according to book by the journalist Michael Tackett.

The Kentuckian also remarked that “it’s not just the Democrats who are counting the days” until Trump’s departure from office. He praised the American people’s judgment in voting Trump out, citing “misrepresentations” and “outright lies almost on a daily basis” as reasons for Trump’s electoral defeat in 2020.

Even as Trump continued to lob attacks at McConnell throughout his march back to the presidency in 2024, McConnell sought to downplay the rift. But Trump’s stampede to the GOP nomination in the early part of last year also likely factored in McConnell’s decision to relinquish his role as Senate GOP leader.

“He let the Republican Party go to hell,” Trump said Thursday. “Mitch McConnell never really had it. He had an ability to raise money because of his position as leader, which anybody could do ... He’s not voting against Bobby, he’s voting against me, but that’s alright. He endorsed me. Mitch endorsed me, right? Do you think that was easy?”

A McConnell spokesperson did not respond to an inquiry seeking a reaction to Trump’s broadside.

Some political observers see McConnell’s rebellion as a matter of paying penance for refusing to vote to convict Trump in his impeachment trial following the riot.

“It seems Senator Mitch McConnell wants to redeem himself,” posted Val Demings, a former congresswoman from Florida. “As a Christian, I believe in redemption. But the senator’s critical chance has passed. America should have avoided this madness with a little courage during the 1st and 2nd impeachments. Principle matters all the time.”

“If Mitch McConnell had voted to convict Donald Trump,” noted commentator Eric Michael Garcia, “he would not have to vote against confirming RFK Jr.”

Trump said McConnell’s “no” votes were a reaction to his loss of power in the U.S. Senate. McConnell has certainly lost the MAGA base, who are holding up these acts of defiance as evidence McConnell should exit the stage.

McConnell has not publicly articulated his retirement plans, but both Republicans in Kentucky and Washington expect him to signal by springtime that this will be his last term in the U.S. Senate.

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