Trump lashes out at McConnell in deepening feud between top Republicans

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - Former President Donald Trump lashed out at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell yesterday, signaling a growing feud between the two most senior Republican voices after the party lost the White House and control of the Senate.

"Mitch is a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack, and if Republican Senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again," Trump said in a statement just three days after McConnell excoriated him following the former president's second impeachment trial, on a charge of inciting the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump and McConnell parted ways in the weeks after the Nov. 3 presidential election, with Trump irked that McConnell had recognized Democrat Joe Biden as the winner in mid-December. They have not spoken since, a former White House official said.

The loss of both the White House to Biden and control of the Senate - which Democrats picked up in a pair of upset Georgia election runoff victories last month - leaves Republicans on edge as they plot how to win back congressional control in 2022.

The gap between the two men widened when McConnell declared on the Senate floor after Trump's acquittal by the chamber on Saturday that Trump was "practically and morally responsible" for the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.

McConnell nonetheless voted to acquit Trump, saying he believed the Constitution limited impeachment and conviction to current, not former officials. The House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump on Jan. 13 for inciting insurrection, but McConnell declined to reconvene the Senate ahead of its scheduled Jan. 20 session for the impeachment trial.