WASHINGTON — Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell is blasting President Trump for allegedly putting “amateur isolationists” in charge of US military policy.
McConnell, the former Republican leader of the upper chamber, bashed the picks for Pentagon leadership while commenting on Trump firing National Security Agency director Timothy Haugh.
“If decades of experience in uniform isn’t enough to lead the NSA but amateur isolationists can hold senior policy jobs at the Pentagon, then what exactly are the criteria for working on this administration’s national security staff,” McConnell told the New York Times. “I can’t figure it out.”
McConnell, 83, has objected to Trump appointing Michael DiMino to be deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East and Andrew Byers to be deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia.
DiMino is a former CIA analyst and former member the Pentagon’s Joint Staff Directorate for Intelligence. He has faced criticism for referring to Iran’s mostly intercepted missile launches against Israel as “fairly moderate” compared to Israel’s oftentimes covert actions against Iran.
DiMino also downplayed in prior remarks the significance of the region for US security.
Byers, a former Duke University and Texas A&M scholar, has taken heat for saying, “America should abandon belligerent military initiatives targeted at China and, instead, hedge against the China threat by adopting a ‘readiness’ strategy.”
Trump, 78, and McConnell worked together on major legislation and nominations during the president’s first term — with Trump reportedly referring to McConnell with admiration as being “mean as a snake.”
But their relationship soured following the 2020 election and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
McConnell’s wife, then-Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, resigned from Trump’s cabinet one day after the mob of his supporters ransacked the chambers of Congress to prevent certification of the 2020 election results.
Although McConnell voted to acquit Trump in the ensuing Senate impeachment trial — heading off a ban from public office and enabling Trump’s political resurrection — he did deliver a speech blaming Trump for the violence.
McConnell said at the time the attack was “a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole, which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.”
Trump subsequently began referring to Chao with the demeaning nickname “Coco Chow” and to McConnell as the “Broken Down Old Crow.”
McConnell this year voted against confirming Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
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