Ted Cruz Says Mitch McConnell Should Step Down

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) believes it is time for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to step down following the fiasco with the disastrous pro-migration border bill, he told reporters this week.

“I think it is,” Cruz replied when asked if it is time for McConnell, who turns 82 this month, to step down.

“Everyone here also supported a leadership challenge to Mitch McConnell in November. I think a Republican leader should actually lead this conference and should advance the priorities of Republicans,” the Texas senator said, detailing what he said during the leadership election in November of 2022.

“It was right after a very disappointing election, 2022. The wind was at our back. It should have been a phenomenal Republican election year. Republicans should have won the Senate. We should have won a big majority in the House. Instead, we lost a seat in the Senate. And we barely got a majority in the House,” he said, explaining that it should have served as a major wake-up call.

“I stood up and said, ‘Look, in any ordinary organization, when you are faced with failure, you’re running a business and you lose $50 million, you don’t just say hey, everything’s great. Let’s keep doing it. Now you sit down and say, What are we doing wrong?'” he said, continuing:

At that meeting, I turned to Mitch McConnell then and I said, ‘Look, we spent the last two years with a group, a handful of Republicans joining with Democrats to pass the Democrat agenda. Let’s admit, maybe that’s a good idea. I don’t think it is. But someone could make the argument that’s a good idea. I’ll tell you, it’s one sided. You know who doesn’t do that? The Democrats.

“In 2017 and 2018 when we had a Republican president, Republican Senate, Republican House, not one single time, did a group of Democrats join with Republicans to pass the Republican agenda,” Cruz said. “So we’re the only ones who do it.”

“But I turned to Mitch and I said, Is there anything — what are we willing to fight on? What are you willing to fight off? Is there anything you’re willing to draw a line in the sand and say, ‘We will fight,’ and he refused to answer that question now and that’s why we’re in this mess,” Cruz explained.

Speaking to Breitbart News Daily on Tuesday, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) said he is uncertain of McConnell’s future following the bill’s fallout. Notably, the minority leader has since recommended Republicans block the advancement of the Senate pro-migration border bill after several lawmakers have come out forcefully against it, including but not limited to Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Rand Paul (R-KY), J.D. Vance (R-OH), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Steve Daines (R-MT).

RELATED — McConnell: Open Borders Bill Has “No Real Chance” to Pass
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“We’ll see how he handles this along the way,” Lee said.

“I don’t know. This is, to put it mildly, very, very frustrating. Like, it’s important for senators to understand that we are — we all work for our respective states, our respective voters in our various states. He’s not our boss. He has a specialized role, which is to represent us on the floor and our interests,” the Utah senator added.