October 8, 2021
Remarkably disrespectful, insulting, antagonistic, bellicose, and obstructionist are terms that barely begin to describe the political nastiness of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s letter to President Joe Biden of October 8, 2021. For anyone harboring the misguided hope that today’s Republican party has any intention of engaging in true bipartisan governance, this letter makes clear that for Republicans there is but one overriding goal: to obstruct any attempt by the Democrats to engage in legislative action with the purpose of benefitting the citizens of the United States, their institutions and the very democracy they live under and cherish. Describing the heroic efforts of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democratic senators to avoid a national and international financial crisis by raising the debt ceiling to cover the massive debt resulting from Donald Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy as “childish,” “bizarre,” “partisan, angry and corrosive,” McConnell declared that in the future should such financial crises occur the Democrats should not look to him (and by implication the Republican party as a whole) for help. While McConnell lashed out at Chuck Schumer and the Democrats, it is McConnell’s behavior that has been consistently childish, bullying, selfish, petty, and destructively partisan. The Politico article quoted below provides an insightful analysis into what history will likely view as one of the most bizarre, reckless, and childish letters ever sent by a senator to a sitting president, a letter that will certainly find its way into the footnotes of political infamy.
“What he’s saying 👇
A TGIF grenade: Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell called President Joe Biden on Friday afternoon and sent him a letter making clear he has no intention of supplying any votes to raise the debt ceiling again.
McConnell said in the letter that after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s Thursday speech castigating Republicans, “I will not provide such assistance again if your all-Democratic government drifts into another avoidable crisis.” After McConnell buckled this week to provide a two-month patch to prevent default, he is retrenching around his original strategy: That Democrats must use the budget reconciliation process to raise the debt ceiling long-term.
Key quote:
“Your lieutenants on Capitol Hill now have the time they claimed they lacked to address the debt ceiling through standalone reconciliation, and all the tools to do it.”
— Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in a letter.
The intended audience: The letter might be to Biden, but it’s really a message to Senate Republicans — who hated McConnell’s short-term debt deal — that he’s not changing his long-term strategy. He won’t deviate next time from blocking any debt ceiling increase not done on party-lines through reconciliation. It’s also a brushback at Schumer, whose speech on Thursday spiked the football after McConnell faced backlash from his party behind closed doors. McConnell in his letter accuses Schumer of “angry incompetence” and “childish behavior,” among other things.”
The full text of Mitch McConnell’s “poison pen” letter to President Joe Biden of October 8, 2021 can be viewed in your browser by clicking on the link below titled “McConnell to Biden 10.8.2021.” Other links allow the full text of the letter to be downloaded to your device and shared on Twitter and Facebook.