Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was reportedly “exhilarated” reportedly in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol because the event meant significant damage to then-President Donald Trump.
“He put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger,” McConnell told New york reporter Jonathan Martin. “Couldn’t have happened at a better time,” the Kentucky Republican added, according to The Washington Post.
Martin wrote about the conversation in his and Alexander Burns’s new book, “This Will Not Pass,” according to multiple outlets that obtained excerpts of the book.
McConnell reportedly felt “exhilarated by the fact that this fellow finally, totally discredited himself,” Martin wrote.
The conversation reportedly took place early on Jan. 7, 2021, just hours after the Capitol was stormed by a group of Trump’s supporters in order to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
Martin and Burns also write that the Republican senator asked them “What do you hear about the Twenty-Fifth Amendment?” and said he was “eager for intelligence about whether his fellow Republicans were discussing removing Trump from office,” the Post added.
They added in the book that McConnell “seemed almost buoyant” and that he said Trump was “pretty thoroughly discredited”.
In separate excerpts of the book, McConnell was previously quoted as telling advisers on Jan. 11, 2021, that “the Democrats are going to take care of the son of a bitch for us,” referring to impeachment, and also said that “if this isn’t impeachable, I don’t know what is.”
The news comes after the New York Times released an audio recording of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) telling his GOP colleagues he would recommend that Trump resign if he was impeached over the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
