Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) described President Joe Biden as a “good guy,” while former President Donald Trump has labeled him “Crooked Joe.”
While speaking to a live audience in Louisville on Tuesday, McConnell said he likes Biden “personally” but disagrees with Biden’s policies, according to the Hill. McConnell went on to criticize Biden for signing “up with the far left of the Democratic Party” and creating a “regulatory nightmare.”
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“I know Joe Biden pretty well,” McConnell said. “He’s a good guy; I like him personally.”
McConnell’s words about Biden come in contrast to how the former president has described Biden.
Trump described Biden as being a “walking LYING MACHINE” on Wednesday, in response to the announcement that there will be no fact-checkers in real-time during the presidential debate.
In March, Trump reacted to Biden’s State of the Union address, stating that Biden’s drugs were “wearing off.”
The former president nicknamed Biden “Crooked Joe” in April 2023, stating that “there’s never been anyone in the history of American politics so crooked and dishonest as Joe Biden.”
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The Kentucky senator added that while Biden had run as a moderate, he “never thought he was a moderate” even while Biden served in the U.S. Senate.
“I never thought he was a moderate in the Senate, but he ran as a moderate,” McConnell explained. “But as soon as the president got elected, he pretty much signed up with the far left of the Democratic Party, which has created another set of a problem for all of you who are in business.”
McConnell added that Biden signing “up with the far left” in the Democrat party has been a “regulatory nightmare by this administration.”
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The Kentucky senator, who has been no fan-favorite of Trump’s, recently met with the former president and other senators during a meeting at the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). This marked the first time McConnell and Trump had met together in several years.
McConnell endorsed Trump in March 2024, explaining that it was “abundantly clear that former President Trump” had “earned the requisite support of Republican voters” to be the Republican Party’s nominee for president, and that it was “no surprise” that Trump would have McConnell’s support.
Al Cross, the director emeritus for the Institute for Rural Journalism at the University of Kentucky, explained to the outlet McConnell could be trying to “appeal to Republicans” who don’t like the former president by trying to focus more on Biden’s policies rather than his personality.