Mitch McConnell Appears to Swing at Trump—US ‘Will Not Be Made Great Again’

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Outgoing Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell appeared to criticize President-elect Donald Trump's foreign policies during a speech on Saturday.

The Kentucky senator spoke out against "isolationism" and praised the "power of alliances" while accepting an honorary "Peace Through Strength" award at the Reagan National Defense Forum. Around the same time, in an interview with NBC News' Meet the Press over the weekend, Trump said he was open to pulling the U.S. out of NATO.

McConnell referenced the late President Ronald Reagan's "peace through strength" mantra in his speech. He also emphasized the need for the U.S. to demonstrate greater commitment to alliances such as NATO and bolster its "military capability" to counter rising threats from nations like China, Russia and Iran.

"Within the party Ronald Reagan once led so capably, it is increasingly fashionable to suggest that the sort of global leadership he modeled is no longer America's place," McConnell said at the event held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

"But let's be absolutely clear: America will not be made great again by those who are content to manage our decline," he added, seemingly paraphrasing Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan. "Let's Make America Great Again" was also a slogan used by Reagan during his 1980 presidential campaign.

McConnell did not mention Trump by name during his speech. Trump has frequently threatened to withdraw the U.S. from NATO over cost concerns, criticizing other member countries for not meeting spending targets.

"If they're paying their bills, and if I think they're treating us fairly, the answer is absolutely I'd stay with NATO," the president-elect said in the interview, which aired on Sunday. If not, Trump said he would "absolutely" consider the possibility of withdrawing from the alliance.

Newsweek has contacted McConnell's office and Trump's transition team for comment via email outside regular office hours.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speaks during a news conference following the weekly Senate Republican policy luncheon at the Capitol on November 19, 2024 in Washington, D.C. McConnell appeared to hit out at President-elect... Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speaks during a news conference following the weekly Senate Republican policy luncheon at the Capitol on November 19, 2024 in Washington, D.C. McConnell appeared to hit out at President-elect Donald Trump during a speech. More Getty Images During his remarks, McConnell described a "new era of great power competition," warning that "influential voices want to leave the lessons of the last such competition, the Cold War, at the door."

"At both ends of our politics, a dangerous fiction is taking hold—that America's primacy and the fruits of our leadership are self-sustaining. Even as allies across NATO and the Indo-Pacific renew their own commitments to hard power, interoperability, and collective defense, some now question America's own role at the center of these force-multiplying institutions and partnerships," McConnell said.

Elsewhere in his speech, McConnell noted that the U.S. has given the world "reason to doubt" its military capabilities and credibility.

"For years, we've neglected our military readiness, the depth of our magazine and our defense industrial base. We've allowed our deterrent capabilities to atrophy. And we've let hesitation and half-measures drain the potency of the capabilities we have maintained," McConnell said.

"Rebuilding this mechanism of deterrence and influence begins with generational investments in the national defense enterprise. We are right to call out the growing alignment and coordination of China, Russia, and Iran. They represent the gravest combined threat to U.S. security since the Cold War—or even the Second World War."

McConnell, a staunch supporter of funding Ukraine's resistance against Russia's invasion, stressed that the U.S. must reject isolationism and remain actively engaged in global events.

The senator pointed out that isolationism "had already lost its grip on American public opinion" in the 1940s as Nazi Germany seized control of countries like Poland and France. The U.S. entered World War II on December 8, 1941, the day after Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

"It is reckless to assume once again that we can buy readiness overnight. It is dangerous to pretend that America's credibility is divisible," McConnell said. "President Reagan knew better than to wait for calamity to force his hand. So should we."

McConnell received a standing ovation after his speech, according to Politico.

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