Mitch McConnell, the undisputed leader of Senate Republicans, a veteran of American politics and a passionate supporter of aid to Ukraine, caused a surprise on Wednesday when he announced that he would leave office in November.
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“I stand before you today (…) to tell you that this mandate will be my last as Republican leader,” the 82-year-old elected official said during a speech to Congress.
This surprise speech was greeted with a standing ovation by elected officials from both sides in the House of Lords chamber.
However, Mitch McConnell has not said whether he will give up his position as senator from Kentucky, which he has held since 1985.
Leader of the Senate Republicans since 2015, this fine connoisseur of the secrets of power has been at the forefront in the fight against the policies of the administration of Democratic President Barack Obama (2009-2017), but also in support of Donald Trump, who died in January 2017 came to power.
With his outdated suits, the man with the elegant metal frames has always cultivated a strict, even rustic image, which is only surpassed by his reputation as a political strategist.
For years he greedily claimed the nickname “Gravedigger” and was accustomed to burying the hopes of his Democratic opponents. In the upper house of Congress, he worked hard to appoint justices to the Supreme Court who, to the great despair of American progressives, repealed the constitutional guarantee of the right to abortion in 2022.
Help for Ukraine
“During my years in the Senate, Mitch McConnell and I have rarely agreed on our policies,” Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday. “But I am proud that we have come together in recent years to move the Senate forward at critical moments,” he said, citing, among other things, the storming of the Capitol, the fight against Covid and the war in Ukraine.
In recent years, Mitch McConnell, a patient shadow negotiator, has actually emerged as one of the biggest defenders of American aid to Kiev, pushing tirelessly to funnel new money into that Russian-invaded country.
In this battle, Mitch McConnell, who represents a traditional, more pro-war wing of the Republican Party, has had to contend with the entry into Congress of Donald Trump's surrogates who espouse increasingly isolationist positions.
This radical change has been evident in recent weeks, with the blocking of a $60 billion envelope for Ukraine, which has been at war with Russia since February 2022, and the former president's threats to NATO allies – so many twists and turns and is heavily criticized by Mitch McConnell.
The senator, who continued to praise Reagan's legacy in his speech on Wednesday, has a very ambivalent relationship with Donald Trump, as the former president regularly bombards Mitch McConnell with angry messages.
Under the Democratic presidency of Joe Biden, a man he worked with for years in the Senate, Mitch McConnell also worked to pass several major projects supported by both parties, particularly in infrastructure.
In January 2023, the two men traveled together to Kentucky to promote the repair of a bridge thanks to this law. Joe Biden, a few months his junior, spoke of Mitch McConnell as a “friend.”
Concerns have been raised for several months about the health of the Republican leader, who suffered two long absences within a month over the summer.
In March, the octogenarian senator was hospitalized after a fall during a private dinner that resulted in a concussion, a broken rib and nearly six weeks off work.
The episode immediately renewed criticism of the aging of the American political class, sometimes referred to as a gerontocracy.
Nevertheless, Mitch McConnell categorically refused to resign.
The influential senator has been married to Elaine Chao, the former Secretary of Transportation under Donald Trump, for more than thirty years.