McConnell says Trump almost went through with Kavanaugh's nomination: 7 takeaways

WASHINGTON – Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has accompanied his fellow Republican lawmakers through some of the most dramatic moments in modern American politics, including fights over Supreme Court nominees, impeachment trials and America's role on the world stage.

He has also seen the Republican Party change under the leadership of former President Donald Trump, with whom he had a mutually strained relationship that at times spilled into the public eye.

The details of this relationship remained largely confidential. But a new book from Associated Press deputy Washington bureau chief Michael Tackett, “The Price of Power,” details McConnell's account of his rise to power, his maneuvers to reshape the Supreme Court and his impressions of Trump.

It is based on records that McConnell provided about his life, including personal letters, official correspondence, and a detailed oral history that McConnell recorded over the decades.

The longtime leader privately described then-President Donald Trump after the 2020 election as “both stupid and ill-tempered,” “despicable” and a “narcissist.” He also said, “It’s not just the Democrats who are counting the days” until Trump leaves office.

USA TODAY has reached out to Trump's campaign for comment on this story.

Here are some key takeaways from the book, set to be released on October 29, just a week before Election Day:

McConnell turned to authoritarian leaders to influence Trump on Ukraine

McConnell has often been at odds with members of his own party over continued U.S. aid to Ukraine, which the GOP leader vehemently supports. He campaigned tirelessly – and successfully – to provide additional funding to the Eastern European country, which has been fighting Russia since February 2022.

Trump has long been skeptical of US aid to Ukraine. But McConnell believed he could persuade enough Republicans to join his cause if the former president remained silent on the issue.

So McConnell sent “pro-Trump emissaries to ask authoritarian leaders in other countries who had influence over the former president to persuade him” to stay out of the debate, Tackett wrote. “Some took trips to Mar-a-Lago.”

Trump did not launch a campaign to block the effort, as he has done with other bills he has opposed since leaving office. The book does not specify which leaders they were and whether Trump actually spoke to the foreign officials or was persuaded by them. The former president is still a critic of additional US aid to Ukraine.

Trump almost dragged Kavanaugh with him

Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to fill an open Supreme Court vacancy in 2018.

The confirmation process erupted when psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford alleged that Kavanaugh sexually abused her in high school. McConnell found her “a personable and credible witness,” Tackett wrote.

The same was true of Trump, who called McConnell and asked whether he should withdraw Kavanaugh's nomination. McConnell advised him to “it’s only halftime” and wait to see how Kavanaugh defends himself.

When Kavanaugh was confirmed, Trump rarely praised McConnell as “the greatest leader in history.”

McConnell snubbed Trump 30 years ago

During McConnell's first re-election campaign in 1990, then-New York businessman Donald Trump sent the new senator a $1,000 campaign contribution.

Trump's casino in Atlantic City was struggling and would eventually go bankrupt. McConnell wanted nothing to do with it.

The couple had never met or spoken before, but McConnell returned the donation along with a note.

“While I thank you for your input, I have noticed several stories in recent weeks about your financial difficulties. Having been through difficult financial times myself, I know how difficult it can be for a person,” he wrote. “While I am sure you will recover, I have decided to return my $1,000 contribution as it appears you may need the money more than I do at the moment.”

“Spacesuits” are being considered during COVID

McConnell's greatest legacy will likely be his ability over the years to validate conservative legal thinking to the U.S. Supreme Court and the rest of the federal judiciary.

In the book, McConnell describes how seriously he took the threat of the coronavirus pandemic, even skipping a White House event where Trump announced now-Judge Amy Coney Barrett because he feared he would get sick.

But when it came time to approve the nominee, McConnell told his staff that if it took “space suits” to safely elect senators, then so be it.

They spoke with Anthony Fauci, then director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, about whether NASA had protective equipment they could wear. And they secretly built a protective plexiglass tunnel that would technically allow senators to vote “with both feet on the (Senate) floor,” which was never used.

McConnell said Trump had done “a number of things” that were potentially criminal

House Democrats first impeached Trump in 2019, saying he was seeking foreign interference in the 2020 presidential election. The then-president was accused of urging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to denigrate Biden in return for help , but was acquitted by the Senate in 2020.

McConnell said at the time that Trump “has done a number of things that, depending on your point of view, you could argue are impeachable,” but added that Democrats “have finally picked up on a few things that, quite frankly, are quite are weak.”

The Republican leader then rejected the Democrats' case and voted against convicting the president.

When Trump was impeached a second time after the Jan. 6 riots, McConnell said he was “not at all unclear” about whether Trump's actions that day constituted an impeachable offense.

“I think this is it. Calling for an insurrection and having people attack the Capitol as a direct result…is as close to a criminal offense as one can imagine, with the possible exception of perhaps being an agent for another country.” McConnell then voted against conviction and expressed concern that it would set a bad precedent to convict someone who is no longer in office.

Trump was accused in a federal indictment of trying to overturn the 2020 election, but he was not accused of inciting the insurrection at the Capitol.

McConnell's words to Republican senators on January 6th

McConnell was upset that Trump insisted without evidence that he won the 2020 presidential election.

As Congress met on January 6, 2021, to oversee the certification of the election results, it learned that some senators – Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Josh Hawley, R-Mo. – would object.

He wanted to prevent more Republicans from joining them. He said at his conference before the vote, which would be interrupted by a mob of Trump supporters storming the building, that it was his most important moment of his time as a senator. Cruz ultimately decided not to object and tried to convince Hawley to back down as well.

“This is about whether we are going to break this democracy,” McConnell told Republican senators that day. “You will never cast a more important vote than this.”

The fall of 2023 was intense

McConnell, who was then the longest-serving party leader in American history at 81, fell in the bathroom at a dinner in Washington in March 2023.

Employees reported at the time that McConnell “stumbled” and was being treated for a concussion. He was released from the hospital with a broken rib.

But the fall was more significant than previously thought: It was a “violent” fall in which McConnell hit the ground so hard that he “lost both hearing aids and bled from the back of his head,” Tackett wrote. “He also lost consciousness at times.”