Republican says both sides of political spectrum should address ‘behavioral problem’ after Trump blasts Nancy Pelosi on Twitter

This article is more than 10 months old

This article is more than 10 months old

Mitch McConnell claimed on Monday the US has a “behavioural problem” – and said both sides of the political spectrum should act to address it.

The Senate majority leader was speaking in his home state, where he will seek another term next year and where he was honoured as the Kentucky Electric Cooperatives’ “Distinguished Rural Kentuckian”.

Such solemn duties took McConnell out of Washington a day ahead of the resumption of public hearings in the House Democrat-led impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump.

Predictably, his appeal for civility came shortly after Trump used Twitter to blast an appearance on a CBS show he called “Deface the Nation” by “Our Crazy, Do Nothing … Speaker of the House, Nervous Nancy Pelosi”.

McConnell said a lack of civility was the biggest problem facing the US today. Americans, he said, needed to get back to debating issues without “getting angry and acting out”. Elections were always “hot salsa”, he added, but governing did not need to be the same.

His remarks seemed likely to trigger many political observers who see McConnell as one of the chief architects of America’s current political climate.

McConnell told reporters his comments were motivated by last year’s acrimonious confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the supreme court, in which he himself played a leading role as a staunch supporter of the under-fire judge.

Kavanaugh was Trump’s second pick for the court. The president got his first, Neil Gorsuch, after McConnell defied precedent to block Barack Obama’s choice of Merrick Garland to fill the seat vacated by the death of Antonin Scalia in February 2016. McConnell’s obduracy both helped tilt the court right and earned him the undying enmity of liberals across the US.

Obstructing Obama, the target of intense Republican hatred, was McConnell’s professed raison d’etre: in 2010 he famously said: “The single most important thing [Republicans] want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president”.

McConnell has cited his defiance of Obama over Garland as “the most consequential thing I have ever done”, but it may be surpassed if another supreme court vacancy arises before the end of Trump’s first term.

There is also the small matter of McConnell keeping Senate Republicans in line ahead of a likely impeachment trial, in which Trump is overwhelmingly likely to be acquitted despite strong evidence the public believes his behaviour in seeking foreign help to investigate domestic political rivals was wrong.

Despite his leadership of the body meant to sit in judgment of the president, McConnell said earlier this month he was “pretty sure how it’s likely to end. If it were today, I don’t think there’s any question it would not lead to a removal.”

Christine Blasey Ford makes rare public remarks, a year after Kavanaugh ordeal Read more

McConnell also stayed strong for Trump during an extraordinarily fraught confirmation process for Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault by a number of women.

Amid it all, McConnell reportedly told a wavering president his support for Kavanaugh was “stronger than mule piss”.

On Sunday night one of Kavanaugh’s accusers, Christine Blasey Ford, told an American Civil Liberties Union event in California she had “simply [been] doing my duty as a citizen” by coming forward.

Last year, lawyers for the university professor said her life had been “turned upside down”. Ford, they said, had been “the target of vicious harassment and even death threats” which “forced [her family] to relocate out of their home”.

Kavanaugh was confirmed by just two votes, the narrowest margin for a supreme court nominee since 1881.

McConnell subsequently told Politico reporters the confirmation had made him “a rock star” in the Republican party. His self-professed role as the “grim reaper” of Democratic policy priorities has also strengthened that status.