Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is shrugging off Donald Trump’s campaign to oust him as the top Senate Republican, chuckling that he views “Old Crow,” the former president’s derisive nickname for him, as a compliment.

“It’s my favorite bourbon,” McConnell said Tuesday evening in an interview with the Washington Examiner, referring to a Kentucky spirit of the same name distilled by Beam Suntory. Turning to a member of his staff, the minority leader asked, “Aren’t we using Old Crow as my moniker now? It was Henry Clay’s favorite bourbon.” Clay represented Kentucky in the House and Senate in the early to mid-1800s.

Trump’s feud with McConnell dates to mid-December 2020, when the Kentucky Republican recognized President Joe Biden’s victory over him in that year’s presidential election following the state-certified votes tallied by the Electoral College. The former president’s anger only intensified after McConnell moved to block his attempts to overturn the results during their congressional certification.

Then, over the summer of 2021, Trump began demanding that Republican senators remove McConnell as their leader. It’s a post he has occupied, unopposed, for 15 years – about six as majority leader, from 2015 to 2021 – and nine heading the minority.

For more than a half-year now, the former president has spit out statements, almost weekly, criticizing McConnell. “Just saw Mike Pence’s statement on the fact that he had no right to do anything with respect to the Electoral Vote Count, other than being an automatic conveyor belt for the Old Crow Mitch McConnell to get Biden elected President as quickly as possible,” Trump said Friday, lumping the Senate minority leader with his former vice president.

MARYLAND GOV. LARRY HOGAN CLOSES DOOR ON SENATE BID

Asked if he was concerned that Trump might spark a revolt against his leadership, or block his path to becoming Senate majority leader, again, if Republicans recapture the chamber in November, McConnell looked almost dumbfounded by the question.

“Every reporter in town, including, I’m sure, you, have been probing to find one for months, right?” McConnell said, regarding the presumed search by members of the press to find a GOP senator who agrees with Trump and wants to replace the Senate minority leader. “Have you found one?”

In fact, no Senate Republican has announced their support for deposing McConnell. Even in the Alabama Senate primary, none of the three contenders are on record as being committed to voting against McConnell for leader if they are elected this year. “That’s the answer to your question.”

McConnell, 79, first elected to the Senate in 1984, has taken heat from some conservatives other than Trump for some of the decisions he has made on legislation since Biden assumed power. The Senate minority leader supported a bipartisan infrastructure bill and continues to bless bipartisan negotiations to overhaul the Electoral Count Act, which governs the role of Congress in certifying presidential election results as determined by Electoral College voting held in the 50 states and Washington, D.C. The intent of the talks is to fix the law to remove ambiguities that might allow a future losing president to do what Trump did – attempt to pressure Congress to throw out the state-certified Electoral College results.

However, regarding this topic, McConnell emphasized, “There’s no hurry. If this were to become a problem again, it would become a problem in ’24, so there’s no rush. And I certainly am opposed to turning it into a debate we just had. If it were narrowly crafted to deal with the Electoral Count Act, which definitely needs fixing, I’d be inclined to support it. Whether the Democrats can resist the urge to turn it into a Christmas tree with all the stuff we just went through, I don’t know. But what I do know for sure is it’s not urgent.”

McConnell made clear that he would oppose efforts by Democrats to load up Electoral Count Act reform legislation with measures they failed to pass as part of a massive overhaul of federal voting law.

The Senate’s No. 1-ranking Republican has experienced perhaps the most pushback from Trump and conservative activists for his decision to work with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York to prevent a government shutdown and raise the federal debt limit, avoiding the possibility that the United States would default on its obligations.

The former president and some others in the GOP wanted McConnell to try and squeeze Schumer for concessions or, failing to win them, let the Democrats deal with the domestic and international fallout. McConnell’s critics were especially upset that he initially drew a hard line against working with the Democrats on raising the debt ceiling but later proved more flexible.

McConnell said the opposite approach would have been foolish.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

“The only people who could have been hurt by making the debt ceiling impossible would have been us. My guiding principle is: Don’t do things that are stupid and that take the subject off of what we want it to be on,” he said.

“The two things we could have done [in 2021] to take the attention off [the Democrats] and put it on us would be to shut down the government or threaten to default on the national debt. You can’t do that to the country either,” McConnell added. “If it’s bad for the country and bad for Republicans, I’m against it.”

Original Location: McConnell dismisses Trump criticism, saying it’s no threat to his leadership role

Washington Examiner Videos