Conservative Senate candidate says McConnell ‘has got to go’

Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala. said Wednesday that if elected to serve in the U.S. Senate, he will not vote to keep Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. as majority leader.

“Inside the Republican conference, Mitch McConnell has got to go,” Brooks told reporters at a Heritage Foundation breakfast. “He’s the head of the swamp of the U.S. Senate.”

The conservative Rep. Brooks is challenging appointed Republican Senator Luther Strange in a special election for the Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Strange was appointed by disgraced former Gov. Robert Bentley, and many Alabamans see the appointment as a corrupt deal struck between a governor that was mired in scandal, and the state attorney general, Strange, prosecuting him at the time. Former Alabama Supreme Court Judge Roy Moore is also running, and holds a commanding lead in the polls.  

Yet, Strange has establishment backing. The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC allied with Majority Leader McConnell, has launched attacks against Brooks on behalf of Sen. Strange. McConnell’s allies want to paint the conservative Brooks as insufficiently pro-Trump, but in reality it is Republican leadership in Congress that has failed to deliver on President Trump’s promises, like full repeal of Obamacare.

Brooks’ criticism of McConnell comes at a time when McConnell’s failure as leader could not be more apparent. The collapse of the GOP Obamacare repeal and replacement bill demonstrated how McConnell’s unfailing support for liberal members of his conference undermines the GOP agenda.

Fulfilling a seven-year promise for full repeal should’ve been easy, and yet, under McConnell’s leadership, the Senate fumbled.

With the election of a Republican president who is willing to sign literally anything that the Republican majority in Congress puts on his desk, the fact that there are no signature pieces of legislation after six months of the Trump administration is squarely a failure of leadership in the law-making body of government.

It is high time for both candidates and current U.S. Senators to reevaluate McConnell’s position as Republican majority leader.

Sen. Strange’s office and Roy Moore’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.