Gingrich on Trump-McConnell feud: GOP ‘better off’ focusing on Democrats

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) dismissed a recent war of words between former President Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), saying the two leaders of the GOP should spend their time trying to defeat a common enemy. 

“We are much better off if we keep focusing on the Democrats. Period,” Gingrich said while he was leaving Palm Beach, Fla., this weekend, according to The Associated Press.

During a fundraiser for Republicans at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Saturday, Trump tore into McConnell for not embracing his false claims of widespread electoral fraud in the 2020 election and a “rigged” election. 

“If that were Schumer instead of this dumb son of a bitch Mitch McConnell, they would never allow it to happen. They would have fought it,” Trump reportedly told the assembled Republican National Committee members. “I hired his wife. Did he ever say thank you?” Trump added in a reference to his appointment of Elaine Chao for Transportation secretary. 

After Trump was acquitted at the end of a Senate trial following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by his supporters, McConnell said Trump was to blame for riling the crowd and warned “he didn’t get away with anything yet” in an apparent reference to possible criminal prosecution after leaving the White House. 

Trump has threatened to support primary candidates who are sympathetic to him and his policies against establishment Republicans loyal to McConnell.