After weeks of holding back, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) endorsed Donald Trump for president just after GOP candidate Nikki Haley announced her departure from the 2024 race, according to a report.
"It is abundantly clear that former President Trump has earned the requisite support of Republican voters to be our nominee for President of the United States," McConnell said in a statement to The Washington Post on Wednesday.
"It should come as no surprise that as nominee, he will have my support. During his presidency, we worked together to accomplish great things for the American people including tax reform that supercharged our economy and a generational change of our federal judiciary - most importantly, the Supreme Court. I look forward to the opportunity of switching from playing defense against the terrible policies the Biden administration has pursued to a sustained offense geared towards making a real difference in improving the lives of the American people."
Mitch McConnell recently announcement that he would be stepping down from party leadership in November after being one of the most influential members of the GOP for decades, HNGN previously reported.
McConnell had held back his endorsement of Trump for weeks even as other prominent Republicans lined up to support Trump.
This comes after former South Carolina Gov. and UN ambassador Nikki Haley announced that she would be suspending her campaign on Wednesday, leaving Trump as the sole remaining Republican candidate for the presidency.
A Trump advisor told the Washington Post that he welcomed the endorsement from McConnell and believes it would help with some donors and Republicans who are lukewarm on Trump's candidacy.
Mitch McConnell was very critical of Donald Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, both publicly and in private.
"There is no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the event of that day," he said after Jan. 6.
He added that Trump "didn't get away with anything yet" in a speech on the floor of the Senate that explained his decision not to convict Trump on impeachment charges.
For his part, Donald Trump has ridiculed McConnell's wife with the racist nickname "Coco Chao," a shot at her Asian ancestry and called McConnell himself a "Broken Down Cow" and even tried to replace Mitch McConnell as the leader of Republicans in the Senate.
