Trump's supporters boo Mitch McConnell despite saying he'd 'absolutely' support the former president in 2024

• Mitch McConnell was booed during Donald Trump’s CPAC speech on Saturday.
• McConnell and Trump have clashed over the Capitol riot since Trump left the White House.
• McConnell said Trump was ‘practically and morally responsible’ for the siege.
• Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.

Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell was booed during a speech by Donald Trump on Saturday after he said in February the former president was “practically and morally responsible” for the deadly Capitol riot on January 6.

Trump previously formed a close political alliance with McConnell, who served as Senate Majority leader until January, and repeatedly endorsed him before the Senate elections last year. But the pair have clashed since Trump left the White House.

During Trump’s speech at the influential Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday — an event to which McConnell was reportedly not invited — he took credit for McConnell’s success in reclaiming his seat as a Kentucky senator last year.

“My endorsement of Mitch McConnell — at his request…” Trump said to loud boos from the audience.

“He made a request, he asked for my endorsement — brought him from one point down to 20 points up and he won his race in the great state and actually the great commonwealth of Kentucky and he won it very easily,” said Trump.

“And I said: ‘I wonder if I’m doing the right thing here?’ But you know what, I did what I did but he went from one point down to 20 points up very quickly, immediately actually.”

McConnell drew an angry response from Trump after he accused the former president of being responsible for the  January 6 riot in Washington DC.

McConnell had said Trump was guilty of a “disgraceful dereliction of duty” during the siege, and said there was ” no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.”

“The people that stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president,” McConnell said.

Trump had been accused of inciting the siege in which hundreds of his followers breached the Capitol building but he was ultimately acquitted after the Senate failed to find the two-thirds majority needed to convict him.

McConnell’s rebuke of Trump came on February 13, shortly after he had voted to acquit the former president in his second impeachment trial, which he justified on constitutional grounds.

The criticism prompted Trump to respond by calling McConnell an “unsmiling political hack” in a statement issued through his Save America leadership PAC.

“The Democrats and Chuck Schumer play McConnell like a fiddle — they never had it so good — and they want to keep it that way! We know our America First agenda is a winner, not McConnell’s Beltway First agenda or Biden’s America Last,” Trump said.

Source: Read Full Article