Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) expressed disappointment Thursday that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would attend the meeting with the former president Trump at the National Republican Senate Committee headquarters on Capitol Hill on Thursday.
In an interview with CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront,” Schumer was asked if he was surprised that McConnell shook Trump’s hand at the meeting — the first time the two Republican leaders have spoken since their falling out in 2020.
“Well, let me just say this. I think there are a good number of Republicans, including McConnell, who know in the back of their hearts and minds what a danger he is to democracy and what a disaster he would be as president,” Schumer said.
“McConnell should have had the courage not to show up. He knows, I think, in his heart of hearts what Trump is like and what Trump would do,” Schumer added.
Trump returned to the Capitol for the first time since the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and met with House Republicans before having lunch with Senate Republicans.
McConnell — who criticized the former president but later supported his candidacy when it became clear that Trump would win the 2024 presidential nomination — spoke positively to reporters about Thursday’s meeting.
“We had a very positive meeting. He and I had a chance to talk a little bit, we shook hands a few times,” McConnell said after the meeting.
“It was a totally positive meeting,” he added. “I can’t think of anything I can tell you that was negative.”
Relations between Trump and McConnell have been strained since McConnell recognized Joe Biden as president-elect following the Electoral College vote in mid-December 2020.
McConnell opposed Trump’s effort to block the certification of Biden’s victory in Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, the same day a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a failed attempt to disrupt the process.
The leader of the Republican Party in the Senate criticized Trump’s actions before the attack on the Capitol, when he denounced him on the Senate floor in February 2021 as “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day”.
Trump has regularly attacked McConnell in recent years, mocking him as an “old crow” and belittling his wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, as “Coco Chow” and his “China-loving wife.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
