Washington – The Republican Senator Mitch McConnell announced Thursday that he would not ask for the re -election of next year, ending a decade mandate as a power broker who defended conservative causes but finally gave in to the field Populism Fierce Gop of President Donald Trump.
McConnell, the oldest leader of the Senate of the United States, has chosen his 83rd anniversary to share his decision not to present himself for another mandate in Kentucky and retire at the end of his current mandate. He informed the Associated Press of his decision before addressing colleagues in a speech on the Senate soil.
“Seven times, my Kentuckian compatriots sent me to the Senate,” said McConnell, while the aid bordered the rear chamber and the senators listened to seats. “Each day between the two, I was humiliated by the confidence they have placed in me to do their business here. Representing our Commonwealth was the honor of a life. I will not seek this honor an eighth time this honor. My current term in the Senate will be the last. »»
His announcement begins the epilogue of a career as a master strategist, the one in which he helped forge a conservative supreme court and led the Senate by tax reductions, trials of the presidential indictment and fierce political battles. However, with his powerful perch committees, and almost two years remaining in his mandate, McConnell promised to finish his work on several remaining fronts.
“I have unfinished business to assist,” he said.
McConnell walked carefully towards the podium, sporting a walking boot. The senators on both sides of the political aisle seemed to listen to the most carefully because he told them that although there are a certain number of reasons of pessimism, the strength of the Senate is not part of it.
“The Senate is still equipped for a great burial work,” he told them.
As he concluded, Senator Thom Tillis, RN.C., signaled the public senators, staff and visitors to the Capitol to applaud, which is generally not authorized under the rules of the Senate.
The Republican senators then aligned themselves to greet McConnell, starting with senator Susan Collins of Maine, who hugged her, and Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, who tapped her in the back. He released a fabric and made a joke, encouraging the group laughing. The head of the majority of the Senate, John Thune, of the southern Dakota, gave him a warm handshake, and a dozen other senators did it quickly.
Senator Lindsey Graham said McConnell had reshaped the American judiciary, in particular the Supreme Court. “He has a lot to be proud, and I’m sure he will work hard until the end of his mandate,” said Graham.
McConnell, elected for the first time in 1984, intends to serve until the end of his mandate in January 2027. Kentuckian treated a series of medical episodes in recent years, including injuries suffered by falls and The moments when his face froze briefly while he was talking.
The famous Taciturn McConnell venerated the Senate as a young intern long before joining his rear benches as a first year legislator in the mid -80s. His dramatic announcement comes almost a year after his decision to give up his post management after the November 2024 elections.
The imminent departure of McConnell reflects the changing dynamic of the GOP led by Trump. He saw his power decrease on a parallel track both with his health and his relationship with Trump, who once congratulated him as an ally but decided to criticize him in caustic terms.
In Kentucky, the departure of McConnell will mark the loss of a powerful defender and will trigger a primary of the competitive GOP next year for what will now be an open seat in the Senate. The Kentucky Democratic Governor Andy Beshear, considered a rising star in his party for winning the state office in the republican territory, said he had no interest in the Senate, although he was largely Considered a candidate for a higher position.
The Kentucky Republicans considering McConnell’s headquarters racing quickly weighed with reaction. The American representative Andy Barr said that he would soon make a decision on his future, while the former prosecutor General Daniel Cameron published on X: “Kentucky, it is time for a new generation of leadership in the Senate American. Let’s do this. Another imminent GOP candidate is Nate Morris. A common denominator among them – their loyalty professed to Trump and his program.
McConnell, pure hard member of the brand of traditional conservatism and muscular foreign policy of Ronald Reagan, was more and more offbeat with a guy moving towards fiery populism, often isolationist, adopted by Trump.
McConnell is still champion offering Ukraine arms and other aids to repel the invasion of Russia, even though Trump reveals criticism from the country and its leader, Volodymyr Zelensky. The senator clearly said Thursday that national defense remains at the forefront of his program.
“Thanks to the determination of Ronald Reagan, the work of strengthening American hard power was well advanced when I arrived in the Senate,” said McConnell in his prepared remarks. “But since then, we have allowed this power of atrophy. And today, a dangerous world threatens to overcome the work of rebuilding it. So, for fear that one of our colleagues still doubts my intentions for The rest of my term: I have some unfinished business to assist. “
McConnell and Trump were partners during Trump’s first mandate, but the relationship was cut after McConnell blamed Trump for “shameful” acts in the Capitol attack on January 6, 2021. A slum in 2024 when McConnell A Approved Trump did not last.
Last week, Trump described McConnell as “very bitter guys” after McConnell, who fought against children’s polio, opposed the skeptic of the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vaccine as senior health official country. McConnell called Trump as “the contemptible human being” and a “narcissistic” in a senator’s biography by the deputy chief of the Washington office of the Associated Press, Michael Tackett.
Before their fall, Trump and McConnell pushed a largely focused tax overhaul to the higher companies and taxpayers. They united their forces to reshape the Supreme Court when Trump appointed three judges and McConnell guided them to confirmation of the Senate, tilting the high court to the right.
McConnell created a precedent for partisan tactics of the hard ball in 2016 even refusing to give an audience to the choice of Democratic President Barack Obama by Merrick Garland to replace the Supreme Court Antonin Scalia. By putting the brakes on the role of “advice and consent” of the Senate for the judicial candidates, McConnell said that the post should be fulfilled by the next president so that the voters could have their say. Trump fulfilled the vacancy once he took office, and McConnell later called for the appointment of Garland Stonewalling his “most consecutive” success.
Later, when the liberal judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg died weeks before the 2020 presidential election won by the Democrat Joe Biden, McConnell precipitated the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett by the Senate, waving allegations of hypocrisy.
McConnell also guided the Senate – and Trump – through two dismissal trials that ended with acquittals.
In the second dismissal, weeks after the deadly attack of the Capitol by a crowd in the hope of overthrowing the defeat of Trump’s re -election in 2020, McConnell joined all the Republicans except seven by voting to pay. McConnell said he was thinking that Trump could not be condemned because he had already left his duties, but the senator also condemned Trump as “practically and morally responsible” for the insurrection.
Over the years, McConnell has switched from majority to the majority to the leader of the minority, according to the party that held power. He defended the treatment by President George W. Bush of the war in Iraq and failed to block the overhaul of Obama’s health care.
McConnell, the oldest senator of all time in Kentucky, has ensured that the state of Bluegrass received many federal funding. Back home, he was a key architect in the rise of his party in a state for a long time dominated by the Democrats.
He is married to Elaine Chao, and they have long been a couple of power in Washington. The senator called her “his teammate and ultimate confidant”. Chao was a work secretary for Bush and transport secretary during Trump’s first term, although she resigned after the Capitol insurrection, saying that she had “deeply troubled”.
—Schreiner reported in Louisville, Ky.
