According to a new book from Jonathan Karl, Trump got wind of the plan and preemptively announced he wasn’t attending
The level of distrust that Mitch McConnell had for then-President Donald Trump in the wake of the deadly Jan. 6 riots on Capitol Hill was greater than previously known.
The then-Senate majority leader sought to have Trump disinvited from Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration on Jan. 20, a new book, “Betrayal,” by ABC News’ chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl reveals. According to Karl, McConnell “felt he could not give Trump another opportunity to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.”
McConnell even wanted to have the four congressional leaders write a letter to Trump informing him he had been disinvited, but House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) opposed the idea, Karl reports, “arguing it would be an important message of unity” to have Trump attend.
McConnell’s letter and his attempt to stop Trump from coming to the inauguration never came to fruition. Karl writes that’s because after a top adviser to the Kentucky Republican informed Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows that McConnell wanted to disinvite Trump and McCarthy separately told the White House of McConnell’s plan, Trump preemptively put out a tweet — his very last on the platform — announcing his decision to not attend.
But while McConnell may have been angered by Trump, he was also proactively taking steps to limit the punishment Trump would receive. Despite criticizing the president’s contributions to the riots, McConnell famously did not vote for Trump’s impeachment, arguing there were other avenues for holding him accountable.
Karl also reports that in late May, Trump critic Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) texted McConnell to say she believed Senate Republicans made a mistake by blocking the creation of a bipartisan commission to examine Jan. 6. A month later, McConnell called Cheney to say she should move on, and that challenging Trump would only hurt Republicans in the upcoming elections and jeopardize her own reelection campaign.
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Following the deadly Jan. 6 riots on Capitol Hill, Mitch McConnell sought to have then-President Donald Trump disinvited from Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration on Jan. 20, a new book reveals https://t.co/7LE1i6d1Rh
— POLITICO (@politico) November 15, 2021
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