Mitch McConnell announces he will step down as Senate GOP leader in November

WASHINGTON (TND) — Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the longest-serving leader of the Senate Republican conference (and of any party) announced Wednesday will step down from his position in November.

"To serve Kentucky in the Senate has been the honor of my life; to lead my Republican colleagues has been the highest privilege; but, one of life’s most under appreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter," McConnell said during remarks on the floor early Wednesday afternoon.

I stand before you today to say this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.

In a restrained but emotional speech, 82-year-old cited the death of his wife's -- former Transportation and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao -- younger sister Angela had put things in perspective for the octogenarian.

"There’s a certain introspection that accompanies the grieving process, to re-prioritize the impact of the world that we will all inevitably leave behind," he said. "I turned 82 last week, the end of my contributions are closer than I’d prefer."

McConnell, who is also the longest serving senator in Kentucky history -- in November he will be marking 40 years since he was first elected -- said that he was making the announcement after arriving at a moment of "total clarity and peace" about his work in the 'world's greatest deliberative body'.

President Joe Biden, who counts McConnell as a friend from their time together in the Senate, told reporters he was "sorry to hear he's stepping down" upon his return from Walter Reed.

While he did not address it in his remarks, the Republican leader has also been himself in poor, and at sometimes publicly alarming, health over the last year. Since falling and suffering a concussion at a Washington-area hotel around this time last year, he appeared to freeze-up for 30-second intervals during two public appearances last summer. He stopped speaking mid-sentence when delivering remarks during the Senate leadership's weekly news conference in July, and appeared to lock-up and sway in place until colleagues led him away. A month later, McConnell was home in Kentucky and attempting to respond to a reporter's question about seeking re-election when he trailed off and stopped speaking for several seconds until an aid nudged him.

The 82-year-old continuously brushed off the concerns over his health upon his return to Congress in September, at which time the Capitol physician said there was no evidence his episodes were caused by strokes or seizures. President Joe Biden, who served in the senate alongside McConnell and often touts their friendship, said such moments were not uncommon for those who suffered the kind of head injury the Kentuckian had.

McConnell ascended to head the Senate GOP leadership in 2007 and has held forth as both minority leader -- as he is now -- and majority leader across that time under four presidents. His relationship with one of those presidents, Donald J. Trump, may have also contributed to his decision to step down. The two had at times a contentious relationship while both were in office and that contention further strained following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. During a Fox News town hall on Feb. 20, Trump said that he did not know if he could work with McConnell were he to retake the oval office.

He’ll probably end up endorsing me. I don’t know that I can work with him,” Trump said. “He gave away trillions of dollars that he didn’t have to, trillions of dollars. He made it very easy for the Democrats.

Trump has also repeatedly referred to Chao with derogatory -- what some have called racist -- language in his posts on Truth Social, calling her "Coco Chow" or McConnell's "China-loving wife." McConnell, in turn, has thus far declined to endorse Trump.

His critics insist he could have done more to prevent Trump's return to the political spotlight, including voting to convict the former during his second impeachment trial. McConnell did not, arguing that since Trump was no longer in office, he could not be subject to impeachment.

However, his tenure in the Senate has held lasting consequences on American politics and life, notably his work with the Trump administration to staff over a third of the federal bench with conservative appointments during the latter's four years in office. For many, he will be remembered in infamy for his refusal to allow President Barack Obama to successfully appoint Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court in the wake of Justice Antonin Scalia's death in 2016.

McConnell told the New York Times Magazine in 2019 that the decision was "the most consequential thing I've ever done.

Liberal critics of McConnell argue it was this decision that allowed the court to swing to the six-three staunch conservative majority that has been in place since the appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett in 2020.

However, McConnell has been facing attacks from his right flank for the last several years over his support for Ukraine and more pronounced willingness to work across the aisle and compromise with Democrats, including -- as Trump alluded to -- his work passing trillions of dollars in relief funds during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"WE NEED NEW LEADERSHIP — NOW," Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, posted after the text of the negotiated national security supplemental -- which would have tied enhanced border security measures to funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan -- came public. "Senate GOP leadership screwed this up — and screwed us.”

While the package was negotiated, in part, by Oklahoma Republican James Lankford, a solid conservative, Lee and other more right-leaning members of the Senate Republican Conference said the legislation did not go far enough and, with the help of a few progressive Democrats, voted it down in the Senate.

One of that group, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., was not only a loud critic of the deal but has been one of McConnell's loudest in-party critics for the last several years. That rivalry came to a pinnacle in the wake of the 2022 midterms, in which the Democrats gained a net one seat in the Senate, and Scott challenged McConnell for the role as conference leader. The Kentuckian came out on top but Scott pulled in votes from 20% of the increasingly conservative group of Senate Republicans. Other Republicans like Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., celebrated McConnell's announcement in a post on X, formerly Twitter, seeing it as a string of ousters -- along with former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and former RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel -- benefitting the more Trumpian mold of new Republican politicians.

McConnell appeared to acknowledge this rightward shift in his remarks Wednesday saying, “Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time. I have many faults. Misunderstanding politics is not one of them.

He also used that moment in the speech to push back against the increasingly isolationist foreign policy stance of congressional Republicans saying he also believed "more strongly than ever that America’s global leadership is essential to preserving the shining city on a hill that Ronald Reagan discussed."

Whether Scott fulfills his attempt to replace McConnell this time around is up in the air. Washington politicos are looking at the other members of the Senate Republican leadership -- Minority Whip Jon Thune, R-S.D., Conference Chair John Barrasso, R-Wy., and the past Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas -- as the three who will be the likeliest inheritors of McConnell's position.

For now, McConnell is content to ride out his remaining year in leadership and two years in the Senate while annoying his detractors.

"I still have enough gas in my tank to thoroughly disappoint my critics and I intend to do so with all the enthusiasm with which they've become accustomed," he said at the close of his remarks.