Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell criticized his party’s consumer of two prominent Republican critics of former President Donald Trump.
Last week, the Republican National Committee censured two GOP Representatives, Liz Cheney, and Adam Kinzinger. Cheney and Kinzinger are the only two Republicans serving on the House of Representatives select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, when Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol in a failed attempt to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s election victory.
The RNC called the House committee’s inquiry an attack on “legitimate political discourse.”
McConnell has rejected this description, and criticized the RNC for censuring representatives over their work investigating what he characterized as a “violent insurrection.” He said that the issue is whether the RNC should be singling out party members who have views that stray from the majority and that this is not the job of the RNC.
In a news conference, the top Senator said that we all saw what happened on Jan. 6, a “violent insurrection” with the purpose of preventing a peaceful transition of power after a legitimately certified election.
The use of the word insurrection, meaning the act of rising up against established authority, is significant, as many other Republican lawmakers have downplayed the attack.
Other Republicans have also labeled the move an overreach for the RNC. Senator John Cornyn said that the RNC’s resolution said it wanted Republicans to be united, but this censure resolution did just the opposite.
Senator Mitt Romney, a prominent GOP lawmaker, also pushed back against the RNC’s censorship, saying that the censure could not have been a more inappropriate message from the Republican party.
Senator John Thune, the number two to McConnell in the chamber, said that if the Republican Party wants to win elections come November, there are better things to be focused on. Thune said the focus needs to be forward, not backward.
McConnell initially blocked efforts to create the House committee to investigate the insurrection, and has signaled that he sees the Republican party’s focus on defending Trump and his supporters’ insurrection as a distraction.
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