Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is battling the Republican establishment and the Washington swamp President Donald Trump promised to drain by leading the Senate Conservatives Fund.

The Republican failure to repeal Obamacare was “a vote a whole election can turn on,” Cuccinelli told The Daily Caller News Foundation in this exclusive video interview. Republicans’ broken promises are causing a pronounced riff that jeopardizes a growing number of Republicans seeking re-election next November. Should they support the Trump agenda or vote with the sinking popularity of the Republican leadership and Washington establishment?

The dangers in the current political environment for the Republican establishment are now “opportunities” for scrappy groups like the Senate Conservatives Fund, whose supporters get most animated for defeating incumbents who won’t keep their promises once elected.

Cuccinelli seeks to find the rebels most able to defeat a content-free Republican. He says 2018 just may become the midterms where a large swath of incumbents are shown the door in a “Trumpian manner.”

“Mitch McConnell’s ego is more important to him than the well-being of America,” Cuccinelli said in the interview, which was filmed before Trump made a debt and spending deal through December.

Trump’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney explained that Trump was right to be frustrated with Republican leadership, and find a better deal than the one they offered him.

Cuccinelli said Republican leaders like to play the “crisis game” of legislating up against a deadline or recess. In a recent Facebook post, he provided the empty leadership arguments given:

If only we had [more power], things would be great. We need to just get past [current fight] and focus on [future election] so we can have [new higher electoral number] and then we will be able to [win policy we are not currently fighting for].

But they have “never played it with a president willing to take shots at them,” Cuccinelli said in this exclusive video interview.

“Mitch McConnell talks one way in Kentucky and another way here [in Washington, D.C.],” he continued.

Cuccinelli, citing promises made to conservative former GOP Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, said Ryan lied to conservatives to be speaker and lies as speaker of the House.

Of the 48 Democrat seats in the U.S. Senate, Cuccinelli is bird-dogging the 25 Democrat seats in play in November 2018, along with the eight Republican seats. The states with races he briefly mentions in the video include: Ohio, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Mississippi, Tennessee, as well as Montana, West Virginia, Missouri, North Dakota and Wisconsin.

As a former Virginia elected official, Cuccinelli also spoke about the “policing 101” deficiency on display in Charlottesville, where the police neglected to separate two opposing groups that clearly wanted to tangle. He also criticized Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe for aligning with the violent left in closing down free speech to position him for national office in 2020.

For more on Cuccinelli, see the SCF website and Facebook page , his Facebook page or follow him on Twitter @KenCuccinelli.

Videographer Sean Moody is credited with the video work for this piece.

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