Here's how Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell are diverging on Donald Trump
The Republican leaders of each house of Congress are diverging on how to deal with former President Donald Trump, New Yorker columnist Susan Glasser explained on Thursday.
"In the House these days, Trump and Trumpism remain the dominant reality, and the polarizing grievance that he has inspired seems to be sending the place ever closer to all-out conflict between the parties. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi presses forward with an investigation of the pro-Trump riot at the Capitol on January 6th, calling the inquiry a 'patriotic duty,' virtually the entire House Republican Conference has elevated Trump's conspiracy theories about the 'rigged' 2020 election and the 'peaceful people' who participated in the insurrection to the level of party catechism," she wrote.
She noted that House Republicans spent the week complaining about the he House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol while Senate Republicans joined with Democrats to advance the bipartisan infrastructure deal.
"In the Senate, many Republicans are no less outwardly Trumpist, reflecting the fact that they represent a thoroughly Trumpified Republican electorate. But there remains a significant G.O.P. faction, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell himself, that seems to hope the Party might finally be moving on from its truculent master. Or at least not be talking about him so much," Glasser explained. "Certainly, McConnell has taken a different approach than [House GOP Leader] McCarthy to the dilemma of post-Trump Republicanism."
In comparing Trump to President Joe Biden, she noted the House actions represented Trump's approach while the Senate actions reflect Biden's approach to politics.
"In the perennial war between the House and the Senate, between Trump-style confrontation and Biden-style consensus, of course, there are no permanent winners. And there are already many losers. Trump-inspired January 6th denialism and vaccine denialism are ripping the country even wider apart. In a speech about the worsening pandemic, on Thursday afternoon, Biden practically begged Americans not to succumb anymore to this destructive cycle of division," Glasser wrote. "It was certainly not lost on anyone in Washington that Mitch McConnell was among those whom Biden praised for their efforts to overcome the partisan vaccine divide."
Donald Trump Would Have Made a Great House Republican. My new column is up @NewYorker: https://t.co/xiX1RH5onv
— Susan Glasser (@sbg1) 1627605428.0