In a memo released to the media Tuesday by U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, in his capacity as head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, he insisted that “The Republican Civil War is now canceled.” Problem solved! Except that couldn’t be further from the truth as the Republican party has become more fractured following Donald Trump’s shameless exit from the White House. The GOP has morphed into the Trump party even though it is tearing Republicans apart.
Following the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had some strong words for Donald Trump as he cast the blame for the insurrection right at the former president’s feet. Although the Kentucky Senator didn’t vote to convict Trump at his impeachment hearing, that harsh rhetoric created even more division within the party — loyalists to Trump and a few Republicans that aren’t going to bow down to one man.
According to what two sources familiar with the event’s organizing told the Miami Herald, McConnell has not been invited to this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). And that’s odd since he is the top Republican in the Senate; however, Trump plans to speak at the event over the weekend, so it could be uncomfortable for many of the people scheduled to speak.
“The annual conference, set to kick off this Thursday in Orlando and run through Sunday, will feature speeches by former President Donald Trump, House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, and more than a half a dozen senators,” the outlet reports.
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“But McConnell wasn’t granted an invitation when CPAC organizers began compiling their roster for the four-day gathering last fall,” the report continues. “An organizer said the decision was not directly tied to McConnell’s rebukes of Trump in recent weeks in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.”
“Leader McConnell did a great job confirming judges, and we know he will be a strong supporter of restoring appropriate election laws. Next year would be a better year for him to address the improvements to election laws once the states have time to act,” Dan Schneider, executive director of the American Conservative Union, told the news outlet.
Even though McConnell has attended CPAC in previous years, the outlet writes that if he showed up this year, “he would risk being met by a hostile audience, given the group’s loyalty to Trump.”
Former vice president Mike Pence also declined to attend the event. And it’s possibly because Trump supporters were trying to hunt him down on Jan. 6th to kill him. What a weird time to be alive.
You can read the full report here.
Featured image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr, under Creative Commons license 2.0
