Donald Trump Blasts 'Broken Old Crow' Mitch McConnell Over Debt Ceiling

Former President Donald Trump has dubbed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) a "Broken Old Crow" for recently helping Democrats to lift the debt ceiling.

Despite previously pledging to force Democrats to raise the debt ceiling using the Senate's potentially time-consuming budget reconciliation process, McConnell recruited Republican support earlier this week to block a potential filibuster—a plan that came to fruition on Thursday when 13 GOP senators joined him by voting to allow Democrats to fast-track their bill. Trump reacted to the deal with anger on Friday, insisting that Republicans could have had a "first-class ticket for victory over the Democrats."

"Mitch McConnell, the Broken Old Crow, has just conceded, for absolutely nothing and for no reason, the powerful Debt Ceiling negotiating block, which was the Republicans' first-class ticket for victory over the Democrats," said Trump in a statement. "He was afraid to play that card even though without question, they would have completely FOLDED on the Build Back Worse Bill, which will destroy the fabric of our Country and virtually anything else that the Republicans wanted."

In addition to speculating that a hold out would have led to the destruction of President Joe Biden's spending bill, Trump argued that threatening to allow a federal default by refusing to raise the debt ceiling should have also been used as a GOP strategy to block the successful bipartisan infrastructure bill. The former president referred to the legislation that McConnell and 18 other Senate Republicans voted for as "the Unfrastructure Deal."

Trump praised House Republicans as "true patriots" for earlier this week being nearly united in voting against a bill that would pave the way for the raising of the debt ceiling. He insisted that the lone GOP "yes" vote from Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) came from someone who was "not a Republican." Trump also suggested that McConnell's debt ceiling move would somehow lead to Democrats abolishing the filibuster.

"The Old Crow also allowed a breaking up of the filibuster, which allows the Democrats now to establish precedent for changing the number of Justices on the Supreme Court and, perhaps most importantly of all, a so-called Voting Rights Bill, which will make it almost impossible for Republicans to get elected in the future," Trump said.

"[McConnell] lost two seats in Georgia, didn't fight for the presidency, and now gave away our most powerful negotiating tool—the Debt Ceiling," he added. "Other than fundraising, where he buys senatorial support, the Broken Old Crow is a loser, and very bad for the Republican Party!"

Trump issued a similar anti-McConnell statement on Wednesday, calling the Republican leader "a disaster" whose debt ceiling stance would help Democrats achieve "a total victory." Trump has been increasingly hostile towards McConnell after he refused to help Trump block the certification of the 2020 presidential election on the evidence-free grounds that Trump was the victim of massive fraud.

McConnell likely widened his divide with Trump by concluding that the former president was "practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of" January 6 during his second impeachment trial, although he did not vote for impeachment. Trump has since called for McConnell to be removed from GOP leadership and recently started referring to him as an "Old Crow" or "Broken Old Crow."

Newsweek reached out to McConnell's office for comment.