Mitch McConnell: ‘I’ll Leave It to the American People to Decide’ If Trump Is Qualified to Be President

Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) refused to answer twice if presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is qualified to be president.

Partial transcript as follows:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let’s get more right now from Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, author of the new book, also, “The Long Game,” his political memoir. Senator McConnell, thank you for joining us this morning. You just heard the new poll numbers. Sixty-four percent of Americans say they don’t think that Donald Trump is qualified to be president. Do you believe he’s qualified? And how do you convince all the voters who think he isn’t?

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), MAJORITY LEADER: Well, look, I — I think there’s no question that he’s made a number of mistakes over the last few weeks. I think they’re beginning to right the ship. It’s a long time until November. And the burden, obviously, will be on him to convince people that he can handle this job. And I think a good step in the right direction was the changes he made in the campaign. He’s beginning to use a prepared script more often, which I think is absolutely appropriate for any candidate, whether you’re a long-time politician like Hillary Clinton or whether you’re new to the game like Donald Trump.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I didn’t hear you say whether you thought he was qualified.

MCCONNELL: Look, I’ll leave that to the American people to decide. You know, he won the Republican nomination fair and square. He got more votes than anybody else against a whole lot of well qualified candidates. And so our primary voters have made their decision as to who they want to be the nominee. The American people will be able to make that decision in the fall.

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