Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is touching on the Georgia Senate runoff elections, in which Republicans lost two seats.
Republicans lost the two Senate seats held by incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, which resulted in the Senate becoming 50-50 and Democrats controlling it after President Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump.
The loss of the two seats resulted in McConnell losing his role as Senate majority leader.
“Georgia was a fiasco,” McConnell told the Wall Street Journal. “We all know why that occurred.”
The Journal reports that McConnell is “still fuming over last year’s elections, not just Mr. Trump’s unsubstantiated assertions of a stolen election but also their effects on two Georgia Senate seats.”
Republicans sought to place blame on Trump after he pushed unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in the Georgia electoral system, according to Politico. This sparked an online movement to boycott the Georgia runoff election.
McConnell weighed in on the 2022 congressional elections during the interview with the Journal, saying that for Republicans to retake control, it is important to “[get] candidates who can actually win in November.”
“That may or may not involve trying to affect the outcome of the primaries,” he added.
The Kentucky senator later said, “I personally don’t care what kind of Republican they are, what kind of lane they consider themselves in. What I care about is electability.”
Asked about how he sees Trump’s role for the party in the future, McConnell said, “I don’t rule out the prospect that he may well be supporting good candidates. I’m not assuming that, to the extent the former president wants to continue to be involved, he won’t be a constructive part of the process.”
Former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) also weighed in on the “dilemma that a lot of Republicans are in,” saying, “Trumpism is not the future of the party. But meanwhile, the president still has a pretty big hold on the base of the party,” according to the Journal.
McConnell voted to acquit Trump in the Senate’s impeachment trial on Saturday. Trump was acquitted on the charge of “incitement of insurrection” with a 57-43 vote, falling short of the 67 votes needed to convict him.
The Senate minority leader wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed since the acquittal, “The Senate’s duty last week was clear. It wasn’t to guarantee a specific punishment at any cost. Our job was to defend the Constitution and respect its limits. That is what our acquittal delivered.”
