Mitch McConnell Sits Down for Rare Televised Interview

Mitch McConnell, leader of the Republican Senate minority and self-styled “Grim Reaper” of legislation, sat down for an interview with CBS’ Margaret Brennan and discussed topics ranging from foreign crises in Ukraine and Israel to the current internal tension within the GOP.

Though McConnell is no stranger to press conferences and issuing public remarks from the Capitol building, it’s relatively rare for the 81-year-old Senator to conduct sit-down interviews on national television. Such things seemed even less likely in the aftermath of his two recent, widely-publicized health episodes.

McConnell indeed became visibly irritated when Brennan pressed him on the state of his health, repeatedly insisting he’s “completely recovered” and refusing to disclose any additional information when prompted.

It was clear that his priority was in shoring up public support for the United States’ ongoing support of Ukraine and Israel in their wars against Russia and Hamas respectively.

When Brennan reminded McConnell that there seemed to be less institutional support for Ukraine funding than Israel, he conceded “there are some Republicans in the Senate, and maybe more in the House, saying Ukraine is somehow different. I view it all as interconnected.”

McConnell was also quick to make the case to unnamed skeptics that America was benefiting from funding Ukraine’s resistance to Russia: 38 states are manufacturing replacement weapons for those being sent overseas— “we’re rebuilding our industrial base.” Moreover, it enables Ukraine to continue “destroying the army of one of our biggest rivals. I have a hard time finding anything wrong with that.”

He also dared to concede that he and President Biden are “generally in the same place” regarding Ukraine and Israel. However, McConnell made sure to repeatedly criticize both the Biden and Obama administrations for their support of the so-called “Iran nuclear deal,” which had restricted Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief.

Despite its reported success, the deal was rescinded under the Trump administration. Despite the Biden administration’s best efforts, Iran has refused to resume the deal and is closer than ever to nuclear weaponry.

Regarding the intensifying turmoil within the Republican Party, McConnell acknowledged that “there have been more threats lately, and I’m concerned about it.”

However, he remained cagey as ever on the subject of frontrunner Donald Trump. Though the two men reportedly despise one another, McConnell has never reciprocated Trump’s public denigrations—and has very rarely offered a word of public criticism against him. Even McConnell’s rebuke of Trump regarding January 6th was relatively light.

Instead, the ever-calculating McConnell merely declared that “dabbling in the presidential election is something I'm just not going to do. I don't think it's productive.”