Former President Donald Trump on Friday called on Mitch McConnell to resign as Senate Minority Leader for supporting President Joe Biden's $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, which passed Congress earlier this month.
McConnell, a Kentucky Republican who voted for the bill and drew Trump's ire, trumpeted the sweeping plan as "good for the country" and even attempted to give the Senate credit for its passage.
"It's not infrastructure and we had 19 Republicans voting for it. What a shame. But Mitch McConnell gave this. That guy should resign as the leader," Trump said in a Black Friday interview on Fox Business.
McConnell and 18 other Senate Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the infrastructure bill in August. Then after months of tense negotiations and delay, the House passed the package largely along party lines in a 228-206 vote on November 5.
GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had warned caucus members against defecting, urging Republicans to vote against the legislation that would help Biden deliver on crucial elements of his domestic agenda.
Still, 13 House Republicans broke with their party to vote for the infrastructure plan. With six progressive lawmakers in revolt, the legislation would not have succeeded if it were not for the Republican support.
"He broke up the bills, and by breaking it up that was bad, but then he gave them two months to get their act together. They were ready to fold. We had them. And then Mitch McConnell gave them two months. This guy doesn't have a clue," Trump said Friday.
The Republican defectors have come under heavy fire from hard-right members of their own caucus, including Reps. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who called them "traitors."
Trump lashed out at McConnell earlier this month over his plan to skip the White House signing for the infrastructure bill.
"Based on the fact that the Old Crow convinced many Republican Senators to vote for the Bill, greatly jeopardizing their chance of winning re-election, and that he led the way, he should go to the signing and put up with the scorn from Great Republican Patriots that are already lambasting him," he said in a statement.
Trump and McConnell have clashed repeatedly this year over the former president's baseless voter fraud claims and efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election.
"Mitch McConnell should have challenged that election because even back then, we had plenty of material to challenge that election," Trump told his supporters at a rally in Iowa last month, Senate Majority Leader Chuck "Schumer would have. McConnell didn't have the courage."
Newsweek reached out to McConnell's office for comment.
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