Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will announce he won’t seek reelection after serving seven terms.
His term ends January 2027.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (@SenMcConnell): "Seven times my fellow Kentuckians have sent me to the Senate…Representing our Commonwealth has been the honor of a lifetime. I will not seek this honor an eighth time. My current term in the Senate will be my last." pic.twitter.com/b33cR7I36e
— CSPAN (@cspan) February 20, 2025
Good:
McConnell, the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history, chose his 83rd birthday to share his decision not to run for another term in Kentucky and to retire when his current term ends. He informed The Associated Press of his decision before he was set to address colleagues in a speech on the Senate floor.
His announcement begins the epilogue of a storied career as a master strategist, one in which he helped forge a conservative Supreme Court and steered the Senate through tax cuts, presidential impeachment trials and fierce political fights.
“Seven times, my fellow Kentuckians have sent me to the Senate,” McConnell said in prepared remarks provided in advance to the AP. “Every day in between I’ve been humbled by the trust they’ve placed in me to do their business here. Representing our commonwealth has been the honor of a lifetime. I will not seek this honor an eighth time. My current term in the Senate will be my last.”
The dude should have retired a long time ago. He’s had too many health issues:
- Mitch McConnell Fell Down Stairs After Senate Vote
- Sen. McConnell Trips, Sprains Wrist After Fall During GOP Lunch
- For the Second Time, McConnell Appears to Freeze and Lose Ability to Speak
- McConnell Claims He’s ‘Fine’ After Freezing and Appearing Unwell at Press Conference
McConnell always demanded loyalty when he served as Republican Senate leader. He retaliated when people didn’t step in line.
Well, lately he has been the rebel, voting against President Donald Trump’s nominees.
If McConnell voted against them on principle, I would applaud him. But I know he’s doing it out of spite.
Hopefully, Kentucky will elect someone like Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).
Speaking of Paul, in his book The Tea Party Goes to Washington, he wrote about McConnell’s behavior toward him during his campaign and after his victory. Yeah, McConnell was not nice or gracious. People like Paul threatened his big government values.
McConnell provided humor a few times. Who can forget Cocaine Mitch?
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
7 times 6 let’s see that’s 42 years. He must be rich by now.
Mitch McConnell’s estimated net worth for 2018 is $34137534. Learn more about their investments and assets…
That looks like he wasn’t as good at being crooked as some other politicians.
He’s overdue for a tuneup at the clock shoppe.
Where he’s going they don’t do tuneups.
I wish Senator McConnell a good retirement. Like many he has done good and not so good. Overall positive, in my opinion.
He would do the country a big favor by leaving now. Being a quasi-dem at this critical moment is not helpful.
Are you nuts?
Ha! The only good thing that he did was keep Garland off of SCOTUS
ANY person in his position at the time would have done that. It is not as if he did anything remarkably brave.
Almost the only thing. He also pushed through a lot of judges in Trump’s first term.
But that’s all I’ve got.
He has done an awful job in terms of faithful adherence to the Constitution.
The sooner he leaves, the better.
As of February 17, 2025, the United States Senate has confirmed 234 Article III judges nominated by Trump: three associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, 54 judges for the United States courts of appeals, 174 judges for the United States district courts, and three judges for the United States Court of International Trade.
McConnell had a lot to do with this, and he should be commended for it.
Ask Cruz what he thinks of him. During the last Senate race in TX Cruz was in a tight one. McConnell refused to give him a dime. Mean and spiteful if you didn’t toe his line.
McConnell has been very vociferous about Trump cutting waste, fraud and abuse. He said, “Trump should make little, tiny, surgical, microscopic cuts — a dollar here, a dollar there—not billions at a time.”
But Trump’s not dissecting a frog, it’s more like he’s trying to take down King Kong or cut a piece off Godzilla.
the above comment from McConnell paraphrased by Paula.
Mitch and the other “we should take this slowly” jackasses in Congress know what happens when Congress tries to investigate or audit agencies. They call in department heads who either refuse to answer questions or suddenly can’t remember anything. They subpoena records which the agency refuses to turn over. It goes to court and the agency is ordered to turn over the records. The agency claims they can’t do it in the time required or they just ignore the order. Congress fumes and nothing is every done. Meanwhile, billions keep flowing to the agency in question.
So many Republicans are also Progressives. They just want it to happen slower, with lower taxes and a lower deficit.
That’s like trying to cut out cancer one cell at a time.
McConnell wants to take it slowly and try to run out the clock on Trump to keep the grift going.
Speaking of grift – Shouldn’t it be possible to grift while promoting an “American first” agenda? Why do all the side hustles have to be harmful?
He deserves tremendous credit for blocking Merrick Garland from joining the Supreme Court but other than that his seat may just as well have been filled by a democrat.
Now that Mitch finally has chosen to be a lame duck, look for him to vote with the Dems more and more. And since Kentucky’s governor is a rabid partisan Dem, leaving early would just cement the seat as lefty. But absolutely, Mitch did the nation a great service by keeping garland off SCOTUS.
KY has, at least for now, a somewhat convoluted way of appointing an interim Senator. The Governor does not have carte blanche, he has to pick from a list of three candidates approved by the legislature and I’m pretty sure they have to be declared members of the same party as the Senator being replaced (in any event, the KY legislature is super-majority Republican). I believe there is a move afoot to strip the appointment power from the Governor entirely and place it solely with the legislature.
Already done. The new law came into effect in December. When there is a vacancy the governor must call a special election. I don’t know how long he can delay it and keep the seat empty.
Under the previous law he had to choose from a list provided not by the legislature but by the outgoing senator’s party. So it would have been a guaranteed Republican. With a special election the Dems have at least a hypothetical chance of winning.
Are you nuts?hitler loved dogs
So what
I used to think that but I’ve changed my mind.
McConnell was in a win-win situation when he blocked Garland.
If either Trump or Hillary won and the GOP held the Senate then he would largely determine who would be confirmed. Which also meant that it was the perfect issue to ensure that every Republican held their nose and voted for every Republican Senate candidate, even the RINOs McConnell liked to back. And if Hillary won and the Dems took the Senate he would just roll over and allow her to appoint whoever she wanted, just as he allowed Biden to appoint all those freaks, while blaming the GOP voters for not electing enough RINOs to keep him in power.
It wound up working well for the Republic and Republicans but as Mary notes on these confirmation votes, don’t assume Mitch was doing it for principled reasons.
He doesn’t deserve jack.
He kept the seat open only because he expected to be negotiating an appropriate kickback from President Clinton before letting whatever far left loon she cared to nominate sail through.
And if the only thing you can praise about him is something he did TEN YEARS AGO, then it just acknowledges what an unbelievable piece of crap he was as Majority ‘leader’.
Exactly.
Looked at from the proper angle, he’s been exactly as valuable a Republican as Krysten Sinema.
Good. Can he leave early?
Bet he does.
“His term ends January 2027.”
He’ll be lucky to make it to January 2026, the rate he’s going …
“He’ll be lucky to make it to January 2026”
And we’ll be lucky if he don’t!
If he steps down, remember, Kentucky’s governor is a democrat and he would pick the replacement for McConnell.
It’s more complicated, see above.
No, he has to call a special election. But he’d probably keep the seat open for as long as he could.
“If McConnell voted against them on principle, I would applaud him. But I know he’s doing it out of spite”
Oh please, he thinks he’s the President and has done more harm than just about anyone to Trump and MAGA.
He should have called it quits at 4.
McConnell has the distinction to be one of these selfish morons who stays in leadership after he has led the party to disaster in elections. This never used to happen. People used to have some sense of integrity, or at least enough shame to step aside after they failed so miserably … but not post-turtle Mitch. He would lose and then run again for leadership.
In McConnell’s defense (that there is any) the Senate GOP is responsible for not kicking him out of leadership all these years. He was a total disaster. McConnell liked cutting deals with Barky and Biden more than having to deal with any deplorable conservatives. The second after the Tea Party gave the GOP the biggest swing in Congressional power in 100 years, post-turtle Mitch declared war on the Tea Party. He deserved to be tossed to the side of the road right then.
Now, he’s going to pull a McCain and stay int he Senate, knifing conservatives in every way possible until his last breath. That is what he is all about. Lowlife scum.
The only thing I would add to your well-written statement is, “Amen.”
Bye, Felicia.
Mitch, don’t let the boot hit you in the ass on your way out.
How will they know? except for turtle word salad. Thnx Kentucky for that pos
Good freaking riddance.
Despite the fact that the RINO pieces of crap like McConnell ran on cutting budgets and reducing the size of government, they magically never managed to cut a single dollar, Elon and Trump in less than a month have exposed just how much insane waste happens and they haven’t even scratched the surface.
There is no better demonstration of why conservatives are SICK of establishment GOPe losers than McConnell.
We would all be much better off if he called it quits right now, but he’s got Biden-Ginsberg syndrome.
McConnell’s day has passed. It passed some time ago but he is one among many of the old guard establishment who refuse to step aside. These Senators and more than a few Reps greatly fear the coming disruption of the status quo ante. They would rather keep the certainty of scraps thrown their way by their d/prog buddies and DC cocktail party acquaintances than deliver on the promises they made to voters over many decades of cutting the size, scope, power and reach of the Federal leviathan.
This term he is showing us who he really is and has always been, a vindictive, selfish small minded person unwilling to cooperate when he is a junior partner. .He’s voting against the President’s nominees not out of some deep held position but out of spite. Just like McCain in his last years in the Senate he is choosing to put personal animus of President Trump above the wishes of his constituents much less keeping basic faith with the GoP in confirmation votes.
the old guard establishment who refuse to step aside
Mostly I agree. But it’s the voters who kept putting him back in office, out of some desire to have power (due to seniority) that he never actually exercised to advance the party’s principles. And, no matter how the system is set up in KY to replace him, if the voters don’t vote for a principled, constitutional conservative, then it’s their fault, and no one else’s.
Very true. The raw power of incumbency is difficult to overcome, especially for a full term in the Senate. A six year term provides all sorts of opportunities to win over various factions and solidify the hold on the office. Then there’s the seniority argument always raised as another impediment to keep the current Senator. The re-election rate is well over 95%.
The reform minded voters must overcome a great deal. I suspect the easier path is not the primary but the general election. If the voters of the same.party as the weak sister incumbent (like Cornyn, Graham, Thune or McConnell) who keep voting less Red than their State choose to stay home in Nov they throw the seat to d/prog. Six years later in a.Red State they can get it back and this time with a more solid choice. We may need to put that theory to the test to root out some of the establishment goons, not all.at once no need to give Senate control to the d/prog but 1 or 2 examples might just encourage the remainder of the establishment weak sisters to tighten up or resign.
McConnell is the current poster boy for term limits.
I would be happy to see a limit of 4 terms as Representative, 3* terms as Senator, and (with the current Presidential limits) a total, combined limit of 20 years.
If folks got into national politics at the earliest possible moment (25yo) they would have to be done by 45, meaning they would have to gain real skills and go get a dang job. (No, there would be no pensions; maybe a small stipend for the next 10 years.) If they started at 35yo and paced themselves (with time outside of national elected office) they might manage to leave office at 65. (And, they would need skills during those years they weren’t in office.) If they had real life jobs and made and did things, they could maybe manage to be as old as Trump becoming President. It also means someone “climbing the ladder” needs to bail early from one of the seats, in order to shoot for 2 terms as President.
(I would also insert a bit that restricted immediate family members from running for the same seat in succession. You would need at least one term between family members.)
(* I could easily be argued down to 2. It would still mostly prohibit you running all three positions to the max. 2*6 + 4*2 = 20 right there.)
BTW, on the family members thing, I would link it directly to Art 1, Sec 10: “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States”.
And, yes, Milhouse, I’m talking about an Amendment to do this.
Sounds like a bill of attainder.
Which of course you can do with an amendment; there’s very little you can’t. But it’s still true.
That’s a fair point, and I wouldn’t want to weaken that bit. (Heck, I want to strengthen it.)
But stopping “dynasties” has to be in there somewhere, IMO.
As long as term limits are applied to bureaucrats. I remember Sebastian Gorka saying his confirmation was stalled for six months. That’s what Dem bureaucrats do. We’re fortunate
we got so many through up to now. I know there are more and the stall jobs may occur
there but…
I am ok with them having the same pension that most of us have
401K or something like that
where they are putting their skin in the game.
But that’s exactly NOT a pension. It’s a retirement fund, which I am ok with.
McConnel’s handling of the Supreme Court nominations was important, but when evaluating his life and career, it only proves that even a stopped clock is right twice per day. Beyond that, he was a absolute piece of Schiff.
It is somewhat interesting to compare Mitch McConnell to Chuck Grassley, who has more seniority (first elected to the Senate in 1981 vs 1985). I know McConnell has had some recent health issues but Grassley is almost a decade older. However Grassley still seems to be going strong. He’s up for election in 2028 at age 95. He also overall seems to be far more comfortable with Trump as President.
Grassley is the Deep State’s “fixer.” (Like Clouseau, he may not be aware of it.)
Whenever a scandal gets so hot that they can no longer put off investigating it, they give it to Grassley. He investigates it into the ground and it is never heard of again.
FBI sexual harassment scandal. DOJ whistleblower abuse. Trump’s Secret Service failures. Hillary’s mishandling of classified information.
The buying of Fast and Furious is perhaps his greatest achievement.
….burying…
Has he announced which Democrat he is supporting for his replacement?
It’s about time. The bright star diminished over the last 10 years. We need term limits for the Congress badly.