It’s a tale as old as time — a torrid love affair that culminates with a messy, public breakup, forcing friends to choose a side. That’s the story of today’s GOP. While a small minority works to convince America that the party is really, actually, definitely, over Donald Trump, the rest of the party is sinking to new lows to prove their unfettered loyalty. 

In classic Mitch McConnell fashion, well-timed leaks, passive-aggressive quotes, and behind the scenes gossiping are how he’s trying to break up with Trump: 

• New York Times: “Inside McConnell’s Campaign to Take Back the Senate and Thwart Trump”
   
• New York Times:“Mr. McConnell for years pushed Mr. Trump’s agenda and only rarely opposed him in public. But the message that he delivers privately now is unsparing, if debatable: Mr. Trump is losing political altitude and need not be feared in a primary, he has told Mr. Ducey in repeated phone calls, as the Senate leader’s lieutenants share polling data they argue proves it.”
   
• Associated Press: “Republican rift exposes choice: With Trump or against him

But who can forget the good times they shared at the American people’s expense, as McConnell and Trump worked together to gift corporations billions while they shipped American jobs overseas, lead a disastrous response to the pandemic, and undermine our democracy.

• Politico: “Big businesses paying even less than expected under GOP tax law”
   
• Vanity Fair: “Don’t Forget to Blame Mitch McConnell for the Coronavirus Crisis”
   
• Politico: “McConnell to Trump: I too like the wall”
   
• USA Today: “Mitch McConnell gives Donald Trump a Louisville Slugger to celebrate tax bill”
   
• MSNBC: “This is the same Mitch McConnell who said he would ‘absolutely’ support Donald Trump’s 2024 candidacy, despite the former president’s role in what the senator described as ‘a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.’ It’s also the same Mitch McConnell who hasn’t announced his opposition to any anti-election candidates running in Republican Senate primaries this year. And perhaps most importantly, this is also the same Mitch McConnell who took it upon himself to kill a bipartisan plan to create an independent commission to examine the Jan. 6 attack.”

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