Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says that after he leaves his current role as the Senate Republican leader, he’ll continue to work to combat “isolationism” in his party.
Mr. McConnell’s comments come after the Senate, following months of delays and backroom dealing, voted to pass $95 billion in foreign aid bills that included funding for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan.
Mr. McConnell announced earlier this year that he would step down as the Republican leader at the end of this Congress, though he will serve out the remainder of his term, which ends in 2027.
In the interim, he says, continuing to bring his colleagues around to his way of thinking about foreign policy will be his focus.
“Even after I leave this job, I’m not leaving the Senate—and this is my principal interest, pushing back against isolationism,” Mr. McConnell said during an April 28 interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
He referred to ongoing Republican conflicts over the United States’ proper role in the world as “a family dispute.”
Until around 2016, many Republicans took a hawkish attitude toward foreign entanglements, exemplified by the administration of President George W. Bush.
For instance, an overwhelming majority of Republicans supported President Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, with Pew Research reporting that 93 percent of Republicans backed the decision to use force at the time. But by 2018, also according to Pew Research, only around 50 percent of Republicans thought the Iraq War was justified and successful in its original aims.
Much of that shift came after 2016 when a new breed of populist Republican, led by former President Donald Trump, began to question prior U.S. interventions and alliances.
However, another sect of the Republican Party—typified by the old guard like Mr. McConnell and younger faces like former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley—has continued to push for a strong, U.S.-dominated global diplomatic and military order.
The most recent display of these ongoing divisions in the party came during the battle over the foreign aid package, particularly in its $61 billion in funding for Ukraine.
In the House, more Republicans opposed the package than supported it, while in the Senate around a third of Republicans—15 members—opposed the foreign aid package.
This element of the party, Mr. McConnell suggested, is “isolationist.” Fighting against this tendency in the party, he said, will be his primary focus after he becomes just another rank-and-file Senate Republican next year.
Mr. McConnell admitted to differences between himself and President Trump on foreign policy, proclaiming himself a “Reagan Republican” on geopolitical issues, citing President Ronald Reagan’s oft-repeated maximum of achieving “peace through strength,” which President Trump also cites in his policies.
During the interview, he was asked by anchor Kristin Welker, “What is your message to the isolationists in the Republican Party?”
“That Ronald Reagan had it right,” Mr. McConnell replied. “You get peace through strength. And I would say to the Democrats, they’ve got a problem on the left. It’s not just us having an isolationist discussion.”
Mr. McConnell reiterated a point he has made on other occasions, saying that the final vote tally for the foreign aid package made him optimistic that, at least in the Senate, Republicans were coming around to his way of thinking about the issue.
“I think our members are focusing on the facts and the facts are that this is in our best interest, it is not some charitable contribution to Ukraine,” Mr. McConnell said, arguing that the funding for Ukraine really only serves U.S. interests.
Ten more Republicans supported the foreign aid package last week than supported previous Ukraine funding.
This point, Mr. McConnell said, suggests that “the party is heading in a different direction from them,” citing the “isolationists.”
However, despite Mr. McConnell’s optimism, the issue is far from settled among rank-and-file Republicans.
Following the passage of this aid package for Ukraine, many Republicans have predicted that Congress would never pass another Ukraine funding package.
That comes as President Trump again raised concerns about the level of U.S. involvement in Ukraine, saying that Europe should be more involved in financing the Ukrainian war effort.
Criticism of Ukraine aid is especially prevalent in the lower chamber, where many Republican members—including a majority on the most recent vote—have opposed almost all Ukraine aid brought to the floor.
Senate Republicans will elect a leader to replace Mr. McConnell in November.
One more McConnell act of Stepping on Conservatives, before Stepping down, which is something one would more expect out of Joe Biden, not the conservative Leadership of the Senate. He should have spent more time fighting the isolating of the average American taxpayer from the Washington elite than acting like a person demanding they be treated like someone special and a step above the regular average income taxpaying guy that he was elected to protect,,,,not the establishment that continually uses us as cash cows and payers of their mistakes with the gift of more necessity in having to pay off more national debt. His ideas on much foreign policy are indeed more foreign than domestic oriented, acting more like a foreign gifter of a Magi paying homage to foreign interests, than a promoter of a MAGA paying homage to the people that paid their wages, often later used to wage bets and make fortunes in the stock markets, with information slipped to them under the table.
His legacy will go down as the great savior of the Supreme court in blocking the Obama attempt to punt Garland over the goal posts, not tackling the big questions of balancing the budget, whose real main talent was to financially fudge it.
WITH how rancid though, Gorsuch has been, WAS THAT REALLY A “Great savior”?
Compared to what Garland has done and would have done to the court,,,, Yes
Combat ‘isolationism?’
He wants to save the ‘establishment,’ and the RINO’s!
He’s such a fraud.
IMO he always has been.. ITS sickening he’s had THIS LONG in office.
he will serve out the remainder of his term, which ends in 2027.
Three more years of worthless RINO nonsense.
His term may end in 2027 but if Trump Comes in and Mitch Mitch acts like a son of a <<<<<Gun, Mitch may depart sooner in disgrace, rather than later on his own terms. His brain freezes already mimic Joe Biden's failing brain and cognitive faculties.
I could care less what McConnell thinks. In the past I did not think like that but now maybe we should.