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Hannity Fixes Crosshairs on McConnell

Fox News commentator calls majority leader ‘weak’ and ‘spineless’

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is catching heat from conservative media for his recent remarks on President Donald Trump. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call file photo)
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is catching heat from conservative media for his recent remarks on President Donald Trump. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call file photo)

As President Donald Trump and North Korean premier Kim Jong-un threatened each other with nuclear war on Tuesday, the Twitter war between conservative pundits and Republican lawmakers continued to boil.

Sean Hannity pulled up the app early Wednesday to batter Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for the Kentucky Republican’s negative remarks about how Trump’s political inexperience hurts the public perception of the GOP-controlled Congress.

“YOU are a WEAK, SPINELESS leader who does not keep his word,” the Fox News commentator tweeted at McConnell, directing his followers to a busted link from ABC News.

“[And] you need to Retire,” Hannity added.

McConnell told guests at a Rotary Club event in northern Kentucky on Monday that he found Congress’ reputation as a snailish chamber that hasn’t accomplished anything “extremely irritating.” Trump’s lack of insider understanding in politics led him — and his base — to believe key agenda items would get squared away more quickly than they have been, McConnell said.

“Our new president, of course, has not been in this line of work before,” McConnell said. “And I think he had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process.

“So part of the reason I think people feel we’re underperforming is because too many artificial deadlines — unrelated to the reality of the complexity of legislating — may not have been fully understood,” the majority leader said.

Hannity has long been a Trump administration booster. Last week, he said he was the only Fox News host who was “strongly supportive” of the president. And Hannity’s is one of just 45 accounts Trump follows on Twitter, the president’s favorite line of communication to the public.

The Fox News host has not maintained such a snug relationship with McConnell. He repeatedly hammered away at the majority leader for not going far enough in his “skinny” bill to repeal the 2010 health care law.

Last year, Hannity criticized McConnell and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan for their “sarcastic and unsupportive comments” on candidate Trump.

“I’ve never seen them fight Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton this hard,” the TV host said on his show.

McConnell caught heat from other conservative media heads for his recent criticism of the president.

Fox Business Network’s Lou Dobbs displayed an onscreen graphic on his show Tuesday that read “Ditch Mitch.”

And conservative talk show host Mark Levin said McConnell’s “disastrous reign as the Republican leader — both in the minority and the majority in the United States Senate — will be noted.”

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