Mitch McConnell, the US Senate's longest-serving leader, decided today to step down in November, after two decades of mixed leadership despite dramatic upheavals in his Republican Party.
That senator from Kentucky, who turned 82 last year and has been a senator since 1985, announced his decision from the podium of the upper house of the US Congress.
"One of the most underrated talents in life is knowing when it's time to move on to the next chapter of life," McConnell said, adding: "And so I stand here today ... to tell you that this will be my last term as the Republican leader of the Senate".
His decision underscores a powerful ideological shift in the Republican Party: from the traditional conservatism with strong international alliances inherited by Ronald Reagan, to the fiery, often isolationist populism of Donald Trump.
McConnell said he will serve as a senator until the end of his term, which expires in January 2027, "albeit from a different seat in this chamber."
His colleagues say that the decision has nothing to do with his health, although last year he had contusions from a fall, and since then his face sometimes freezes briefly when he speaks.
"As I contemplated the moment when I would break the news to the Senate, I always imagined a moment when I would have complete clarity and feel complete peace about the completion of my work. A moment when I would be sure that I had helped to preserve the ideals to which I so strongly I believe. That moment came today," said McConnell, who has been working under pressure from a tireless, sometimes hostile wing of Trump's Republicans.
Although they worked together while Trump was president (2016-2020), they parted ways in December 2020 when McConnell flatly refused to support Trump's lie that he lost to Joseph Biden due to alleged rigging of the election results.
The gap between them deepened dramatically after the attack of the riotous masses on the Congress on January 6, 2021, when McConnell said that directly Trump was guilty and responsible for it and that he should be prosecuted. On the other hand, McConnell refused to let the second case against Trump end with a conviction in Congress.
Although McConnell's critics within the Republican Party have become louder, they have not become particularly numerous, which is a testament to his strategic and tactical skills, as well as his ability to understand the needs of senators from his own party.
He accepted the view of Ronald Reagan, the president from the time he began his service in the Senate, that the USA has an important role in the world, so despite resistance in the party, including the resistance of Donald Trump, he recently insisted that the Senate include in the legal package of aid to foreign countries and $60 billion for Ukraine, exposed to Russian invasion, for which he managed to secure 22 Republican votes in the Senate for a bipartisan aid package.
That package was then sent to the lower house of Congress, the House of Representatives, for consideration, where it is now.
Trump dragged the Republican Party to the right, and after the election defeat he continued to control it and now, despite four court cases against him, including the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, he is fighting to win the Republican nomination for the presidency of the United States again. .
While Trump was supported in this by other influential Republicans in the Senate, McConnell refused to do so and was therefore criticized by his colleagues.
Although he indicated that his years had caught up with him, he declared: "I still have enough fuel in the tank to thoroughly disappoint my critics, and I intend to do so with all the enthusiasm I have accustomed them to".
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