- Mo Brooks reveals McConnell will face “significant resistance” in staying on as the Senate GOP leader.
- Brooks threw out conservatives like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul as runners that he could support.
- The congressman is running in Alabama’s 2022 Senate race and faces a competitive GOP primary.
Republican Rep. Mo Brooks on Friday said that Sen. Mitch McConnell would face “significant obstruction” in staying on as the party’s leader in the upper chamber after the 2022 midterm elections.
Brooks — an Alabama conservative operation for the Senate seat being vacated by veteran lawmaker Richard Shelby after the midterms — gave an interview on the Mobile-based broadcast station FM Talk 1065 where he threw out the names of well-known lawmakers like Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri as potential replacements for the Kentucky Republican.
The congressman — who was indorsed by former President Donald Trump last year and is strongly allied with the “Make America Great Again” shift — is counting on the former president’s support to boost him in a competitive multicandidate GOP primary.
“There’s going to be significant resistance to Mitch McConnell being the Republican chairman of the United States Senate,” Brooks remarked on “The Jeff Poor Show.”
He continued: “Even [Sen.] Lindsey Graham has presented that Mitch McConnell should not be the leader if he’s not able to work things out with Donald Trump. I have envisaged nothing that suggests that he is going to be able to work things out with Donald Trump. But we’ll see how it plays out in that tie-in.”
For months, Trump has sought to replace McConnell as the top Senate Republican, motivated by the Kentucky lawmaker’s actions during the draw to a close days of the former president’s administration.
After Trump’s second impeachment trial in 2021 for “incitement of insurrection” for his impersonation in the January 6 riot, McConnell declined to find the president guilty but berated him on the Senate floor. While McConnell later revealed that he would support Trump if he emerged as the party’s presidential nominee in 2024, the former president has not forgotten upon the senator’s earlier words.
Trump has also been critical of McConnell’s support of President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure neb, which the former president repeatedly called a “disgrace.”
While Brooks has made no secret of his distaste for McConnell’s command style, the congressman also said that he could still back the Kentucky Republican if he was the most conservative sole seeking to lead the caucus.
“I’m going to vote for whoever is the most conservative person running for the leadership of the Republicans in the Mutual States Senate,” he said.
He added: “There’s a possibility that’s Mitch McConnell if he’s up against Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski or any of the candid border, left winger types. You’ve got to take into account who the competition is because it’s a comparison thing. If we could get someone with Rand Paul or Mike Lee or Josh Hawley … or Ron Johnson out of Wisconsin … or Ted Cruz out of Texas … I’m going to signify ones opinion for them.”
Brooks — one of Trump’s staunchest congressional allies during the former president’s tenure in the White House — faltered with fundraising in the third division of 2021, trailing Katie Britt, the former president and chief executive officer of the Business Council of Alabama and his most frightful opponent.
In the third quarter, Britt — a former chief of staff to Shelby — raised roughly $1.5 million, with the congressman chase with 670,000, according to The Alabama Political Reporter.
The publication also reported that Brooks added distinct staffers to his campaign last December in an effort to bolster his standing headed into the primary.
With Alabama’s sagacious red political hue, whoever wins the Republican primary is heavily favored to win the general election.