McConnell will ‘make Biden a moderate’ if Republicans retake Congress
The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said on Sunday Republicans will force Joe Biden to govern as a “moderate” if the GOP retakes Congress in November.
Speaking to Fox News Sunday, McConnell attacked Biden on subjects including reported crime increases in large US cities, the decision to extend a moratorium on repaying student loan debts, and the administration’s attempt to lift a Trump policy that allowed border patrol agents to turn away migrants at the southern border, ostensibly to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
“This administration just can’t seem to get their act together,” McConnell said. “I think they’re headed toward a pretty good beating in the fall election.”
If that beating were to materialize, giving Republicans control of the Senate and House, McConnell said his party would try to confine Biden to the center of an increasingly polarized political spectrum.
“Let me put it this way – Biden ran as a moderate,” McConnell said. “If I’m the majority leader in the Senate, and [House minority leader] Kevin McCarthy is speaker of the House, we’ll make sure Joe Biden is a moderate.”
Without delving into specifics, McConnell outlined a broad set of policy priorities, including reducing crime, overhauling education, pursuing cheaper gasoline prices and investing in defense following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
McConnell said Biden’s low poll numbers reflected dissatisfaction with his administration’s response to all those problems.
“I like the president personally,” McConnell said. “It’s clear to me personality is not what is driving his unpopularity.”
McConnell did not mention – and was not asked about – whether he would seek to block any further Biden nominations to the supreme court, which for now has a 6-3 conservative majority.
In a recent interview with Axios, McConnell would not commit to hearings for any potential nominees if he led the Senate at any point before the 2024 presidential election, Republicans’ next opportunity to retake the White House.
Last year, he said the GOP would block a Biden supreme court nominee if it controlled the Senate in 2024, an election year.
McConnell blocked Barack Obama’s final nominee, Merrick Garland, from even receiving a hearing in 2016, citing
that year’s presidential election. In 2020, he oversaw the confirmation of Donald Trump’s third nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, shortly before polling day.
McConnell’s comments on Sunday echoed some of the remarks he made in the interview with Axios, when he predicted that Biden would “finally be the moderate he campaigned as” if the Democrats lost their congressional majority in November.
The Democrats hold a 12-seat advantage in the House and generally hold a single-vote edge in the 50-50 Senate, where vice-president Kamala Harris can serve as tiebreaker.