Mitch McConnell

American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

Mitch McConnell is a long-serving US Senator from Kentucky and the former Senate Majority Leader. He has played a key role in shaping conservative policies, including overturning campaign finance laws and confirming conservative judges. Despite supporting many of Trump’s policies, he has been critical of the former president’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

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About the Mitch McConnell

Addison Mitchell McConnell IIIis an American politician and retired attorney who has been serving as senate minority leader since 2021 and the senior United States senator from Kentucky since 1985, the longest serving senator in his state’s history. McConnell has been the leader of the Senate Republican Conference since 2007, including as majority leader from 2015 to 2021, making him the longest serving Senate party leader in U.S. history.

McConnell holds conservative political positions, although he was known as a pragmatist and a moderate Republican early in his political career. He led opposition to stricter campaign finance laws, culminating in the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Citizens United v. FEC that partially overturned the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Actin 2010. McConnell worked to withhold Republican support for major presidential initiatives during the Obama administration, having made frequent use of the filibuster, and blocked many of President Obama’s judicial nominees, including Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.

During the Trump administration, the Senate Republican majority under his leadership passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act in 2018, the First Step Act, the Great American Outdoors Act, and confirmed a record number of federal appeals court judges during a president’s first two years. McConnell invoked the nuclear option to eliminate the 60-vote requirement to end a filibuster for Supreme Court nominations, after his predecessor Harry Reid had previously eliminated the filibuster for all other presidential nominations; Trump subsequently won confirmation battles on Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court. While supportive of most of Trump’s domestic and foreign policies, McConnell was critical of Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and despite voting to acquit on Trump’s second impeachment trial on reasons related to the constitutionality of impeaching a former president, deemed him “practically and morally responsible” for the January 6 United States Capitol attack.

In 2015, 2019 and 2023, Time listed McConnell as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. On February 28, 2024, McConnell announced that he would be stepping down as the Senate Republican Conference Leader in January 2025, but would serve out the remainder of his current Senate term.

Frequently Asked Questions

Mitch McConnell is an American politician and retired attorney who has been the senior United States senator from Kentucky since 1985, the longest serving senator in his state’s history.

Mitch McConnell has been the leader of the Senate Republican Conference since 2007, including as majority leader from 2015 to 2021, making him the longest serving Senate party leader in U.S. history.

Mitch McConnell holds conservative political positions, although he was known as a pragmatist and a moderate Republican early in his political career.

Mitch McConnell led opposition to stricter campaign finance laws, culminating in the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Citizens United v. FEC that partially overturned the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold) in 2010.

Mitch McConnell worked to withhold Republican support for major presidential initiatives during the Obama administration, having made frequent use of the filibuster, and blocked many of President Obama’s judicial nominees. During the Trump administration, the Senate Republican majority under his leadership passed several significant pieces of legislation.

While supportive of most of Trump’s domestic and foreign policies, Mitch McConnell was critical of Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and deemed him ‘practically and morally responsible’ for the January 6 United States Capitol attack.

On February 28, 2024, Mitch McConnell announced that he would be stepping down as the Senate Republican Conference Leader in January 2025, but would serve out the remainder of his current Senate term.

24 Quotes by Mitch McConnell

  1. 1.

    The president feels not only do we need to change these rogue regimes, but even our friendly allies, who really basically have, sort of, benign dictatorships, need to get with the program if they want to have long-term security and prosperity from terrorism.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  2. 2.

    Today, Democrats not only have the White House; they have the Senate too. So we have to be realistic about what we can and cannot achieve, while at the same recognizing that realism should never be confused with capitulation.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  3. 3.

    The debt they ran up in the first year of the Obama administration is bigger than the last four years of the Bush combined.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  4. 4.

    The fact is, if our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending bill; to end the bailouts; cut spending; and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things it is to put someone in the White House who won’t veto any of these things.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  5. 5.

    Americans don’t think we should be raising taxes on anybody, especially in the middle of a recession.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  6. 6.

    Syria and Iran have always had a pretty tight relationship, and it looks to me like they just cooked up a press release to put out to sort of restate the obvious. They’re both problem countries; we know that. And this doesn’t change anything.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  7. 7.

    By their own admission, leaders of the Republican Revolution of 1994 think their greatest mistake was overlooking the power of the veto. They gave the impression they were somehow in charge when they weren’t.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  8. 8.

    I think the important thing to remember here is that we haven’t been attacked again at home since September of 2001.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  9. 9.

    After adding trillions to the debt on big-government policies most Americans didn’t ask for and which we couldn’t afford, Democratic leaders say they need more money, which they intend to take from small business, even though small businesses create the majority of new jobs.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  10. 10.

    Bolton’s exactly what the U.N. needs at this point. The president’s right on the mark in picking him.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  11. 11.

    Things happen in American politics in the political center. If the President will meet us in the center, there are things we can accomplish.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  12. 12.

    The bill that job creators and out-of-work Americans need us to pass is the one that ensures taxes won’t go up – one that says Americans and small-business owners won’t get hit with more bad news at the end of the year.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  13. 13.

    More young people believe they’ll see a U.F.O. than that they’ll see their own Social Security benefits.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  14. 14.

    The money that goes into Social Security is not the government’s money. it’s your money. You paid for it.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  15. 15.

    The White House has a choice: They can change course, or they can double down on a vision of government that the American people have roundly rejected.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  16. 16.

    The administration still wants to govern from the far-left and that’s going to produce kind a partisan result here in the Congress.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  17. 17.

    It’s time Congress got its priorities straight.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  18. 18.

    The new troops in Iraq need to be Iraqi troops.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  19. 19.

    There is a lot of room for improvement in Social Security. We owe our children the most financially sound system possible. They will have paid into it their entire working lives. They deserve to be protected by it. for our children and grandchildren.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  20. 20.

    We need to strengthen and save Social Security for today’s workers. If we don’t act now, this system, born out of the New Deal, will become a bad deal.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  21. 21.

    If the administration wants cooperation, it will have to begin to move in our direction.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  22. 22.

    We’re not gonna misread our mandate.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  23. 23.

    We all know that Social Security is one of this country’s greatest success stories in the 20th century.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)

  24. 24.

    It took us in this country 11 years to get from the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution.

    Mitch McConnell

    American politician and lawyer (born 1942)