McConnell: 'We could do with a little less drama from the White House'

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that he and his GOP colleagues on Capitol Hill could use a break from the near constant stream of controversy emerging from the White House as they continue to push forward with an aggressive package of conservative legislation.

“I think we could do with a little less drama from the White House on a lot of things so that we can focus on our agenda, which is deregulations, tax reform and repealing and replacing Obamacare,” McConnell (R-Ky.) said in an interview Tuesday morning with Bloomberg TV.


His comments came in response to reporting from the Washington Post, which published a story Monday evening alleging that President Donald Trump had disclosed highly sensitive intelligence to two top Russian diplomats during an Oval Office meeting last week. White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster disputed the story with a statement delivered to reporters Monday evening that McConnell said “tends to refute the story, rebut the story.”

News of Trump’s alleged sharing of classified information with Russian officials closely followed another Russia-related controversy that the president kicked off last week with his surprise firing of FBI Director James Comey, who was at the time overseeing the bureau’s investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

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That investigation remains ongoing, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe has said, but the debate prompted by Comey’s firing as well as the need to nominate and confirm a new, permanent head for the bureau had already potentially reduced the Senate's momentum for repealing and replacing Obamacare.