Former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) on Thursday ripped the Republican Party for what it’s become in the Donald Trump era.
McCaskill, now a political analyst for MSNBC, recalled on the “Morning Joe” show how GOP leaders in 2012 “rejected” her then-Republican challenger, the late Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.), for his comments on “legitimate rape.”
But 11 years later, with the party in thrall to Trump, McCaskill explained how it’s a different story, as even top Republicans continue to defend the former president amid his mounting legal woes and reported imminent indictment in the special counsel probe into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“The main difference here is not the conduct of the candidate, it is the reaction of the leaders of his party,” McCaskill said, noting how Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) all condemned Trump in the immediate aftermath of the insurrection.
“But then they got scared,” she said. “They just became little, lily-livered cowards and were too afraid that, somehow, they couldn’t hold on to their precious office or their precious power if they stated the obvious.”
“So, it is not so much what Donald Trump has done,” McCaskill added. “It’s the rest of the Republican Party who has elevated him and kept him elevated that has brought this upon America.”