January 1, McConnell called Trump ‘a fading brand’

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called former President Donald Trump a “fading brand” and maintained that the GOP is moving away from the former president, according to Bob Woodward and Robert Costa’s new book, “Peril.”

The book claims that during a conversation with Sen. Lindsay Graham, McConnell said Trump was an “OTTB as they say in Kentucky – off-the-track Thoroughbred.”

“‘There is a clear trend moving,’ McConnell said, toward a place where the GOP is not dominated by Trump. McConnell added, ‘Sucking up to Donald Trump is not a strategy that works,'” the book reads.

McConnell publicly blamed Trump for the Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol but ultimately did not vote to impeach.

“The mob was fed lies,” McConnell said in a Jan. 19 speech. “They were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government, which they did not like.”

Trump has been at odds with the Senate Minority Leader since he left office, at one point calling him “a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack.”

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McConnell called Trump ‘a fading brand’ and said ‘sucking up’ to him ‘is not a strategy that works’: book