BY JASON DICK AND JOE WILLIAMS, CQ ROLL CALL

It’s difficult to get Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to play anything but “The Long Game,” the Kentucky Republican’s political strategy, encapsulated by his 2016 memoir of the same name.

On Tuesday, Capitol Hill was still consumed with the bombshell news from the White House, that President Donald Trump disclosed classified information to Russian diplomats in an Oval Office meeting, followed by shifting denials and justifications from the administration and bipartisan expressions of concern from lawmakers.

McConnell started the day with an interview on Bloomberg TV with a succinct message about the daily conflagrations from the White House. “I think it would be helpful if the president spent more time on things we’re trying to accomplish and less time on other things,” he said matter-of-factly.

A surprise push

During the same interview, he said he put in a plug with Trump for Merrick Garland, the Supreme Court nominee McConnell refused to so much as grant a hearing for last year, to be FBI director.