McConnell criticizes Bannon’s strategy

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Sunday criticized former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon and others trying to knock off Republican incumbents as “specialists at nominating people who lose.”

McConnell appeared on two Sunday morning talk shows and was asked about Bannon’s efforts to find primary opponents for all but one of the Senate Republicans running for reelection next year. McConnell argued that the kind of candidates Bannon and others are supporting will not have the broad appeal needed to win general elections.

“The kind of people that are supported by the element that you’ve just been referring to are specialists in defeating Republican candidates in November, and that’s what this interparty skirmish is about,” McConnell said on Fox News Sunday. “Our goal is to nominate people in the primaries next year who can actually win” in the general election.

Since leaving the White House in August, Bannon has argued that many GOP incum- bents are standing in the way of Trump achieving the nationalist agenda that swept him into the White House.

Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union, McConnell played down infighting between Trump and congressional Republicans.

“I think he’s getting a lot more done than he’s giving everybody credit for,” McConnell said of Trump. “I think his appointments, as I’ve said earlier, are absolutely changing the country. The optimism about the economy is picking up. It’s related to the people he’s put in positions at various key places in the federal government. It’s related to the Supreme Court appointments and all the judges that we’re confirming.”