Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was not too enthusiastic Thursday when talking about Donald Trump as his party’s presumptive presidential nominee, telling the radio show WBAL News Now with Bryan Nehman that Trump’s personal insults “ought to stop.”
“I don’t think it adds any value whatsoever to the discourse. It is something about him that I don’t care for,” he said, in comments first picked up by Buzzfeed.
McConnell also punted on an earlier question posed to him if he believed Trump was a conservative, or even a Republican.
“I think he will have to operate in what I call the right-of-center world,” he McConnell. “And that includes a lot of people like Ryan, myself, and others who clearly are conservatives. The president is not a dictator in our country. You can’t just do whatever you want to, you have to work in the system. And the system in our party is right of center.”
McConnell was initially asked why he was so quick to “say yes” to Trump, as his counterpart in the House, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) held off on endorsing Trump when he emerged as the last man standing in the GOP 2016 race.
“He won. He got the most votes. And I think we need to respect the process,” McConnell said, noting that he outlasted a crowded primary field.
“And also look. What is the alternative? We know that Hillary Clinton will be four more years just like the last eight,” McConnell said.
