Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “ran a one-man dictatorship” throughout his years of leadership, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said during an interview on Breitbart News Daily.
Johnson, who is supporting Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) in the Senate leadership race, blasted the years of McConnell’s leadership.
“Mr. McConnell ran a one-man dictatorship. We had no idea what his strategy was,” he said, using the border bill as one of the latest examples.
“All we were asking for is an enforcement mechanism to force Biden to use the authority he had to secure the border. We would have been happy to strengthen that authority. Nobody asked for an immigration bill, certainly not that awful one that he ended up negotiating as a total breach of leadership responsibility, but he just dropped that on the conference, and all of our jaws dropped,” he said, contrasting McConnell’s leadership with that of Scott.
“So one-man dictatorship versus Rick Scott,” he said, praising Scott’s business sense.
“When you run an organization, you can’t be a dictator. You have to be collaborative. Your organization has to know, here’s our mission, here are our goals, here’s your role in fulfilling those goals. So it’d be a far more collaborative process. Listen, we have smart people in the Senate. I mean, people may not agree with that, but we do. We’ve got accomplished people that can contribute and the role of the leaders to find those you know, those competencies in those individuals and use them fully. But again, bring everybody on board,” he said, explaining that Scott has done this “repeatedly in business, and then as governor of a state, as being executive.”
“We need that type of leadership — that kind of functioning organization in the United States Senate. So we haven’t had it. We haven’t had … [it] in the 14 years I’ve been here,” Johnson said.
LISTEN:
Host Mike Slater pressed Johnson, asking, “So I want to make sure, if it’s not Rick Scott, did we just miss the potential for how good things could have been? Or is it like, ‘Oh no, the whole thing’s ruined. We blew it?'”
“No, it’s not gonna be cataclysmic,” Johnson said, explaining that he will work with “whoever our majority leader is.” And no matter what, he believes it will be better than McConnell.
“And no matter who it will be, I think it will be better than Mitch McConnell. I think the one-man dictatorship ends. And so no matter who’s leader, that leader is going to have to be more collaborative,” he said, praising Scott as an “extraordinary individual.”
While Johnson said he has been calling on President-elect Donald Trump to endorse Scott, he added that regardless of who is elected, “It’ll be up to Trump to lead.”
“We need to set priorities. We need to need to accomplish what we say we’re going to do, recognizing we’ve got a big mess on our hands,” he added, noting that it is “grotesque” that McConnell want the votes so early.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.