Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) isn’t ruling out pulling his Trump endorsement if the Republican presidential nominee doesn’t clean up his act.
“I’m not going to speculate about what he might say, or what I might do,” McConnell told Bloomberg News in a podcast. “But I think it’s pretty clear and I’ve been pretty clear publicly about how I think he ought to change direction and I hope that’s what we are going to see.”
McConnell told Bloomberg that he had serious concerns about Trump’s inability to reach out to minority voters and even women, something that could sink the GOP in the fall.
“We are not going to be competitive in presidential elections appealing only to white voters and particularly writing off white women,” McConnell told Bloomberg. “So beyond the unfortunate part of the various things that our nominee has said—it’s not smart politically.”
The interview was just the latest indication of unease among top Republicans with Trump. It’s highly unusual for a Republican Senate leader to openly dismiss his nominee’s appeal to general election voters. McConnell – who hopes to protect his Senate majority from Trump in November– said he did not believe Trump would even have “coattails” for his members to run on.
“I think the choice for many Americans is not a happy choice,” he said. “You look at both these candidates, both of them have very high disapproval ratings. I think a lot of Americans are not going be thrilled at the choice.”
