US Senator Mitch McConnell has announced that he will not seek re-election in 2026 after a 40-year career in the congress.
McConnell, 83-year-old, was a party leader with the longest time in Senate history, but withdrew from the Republican leadership while faced with health problems.
Although he supports much of Donald Trump's agenda during his first administration, McConnell has become a more voice critic of the president as he faces retirement at the end of his term.
“I have some unfinished business to attend,” he said in a speech on the Senate floor, which announced that his “current Senate mandate would be my last.”
In his speech, McConnell encouraged his colleagues to use his constitutional powers at a time when Trump tried to significantly expand the scope of the Presidency.
McConnell voted against Trump's appointments most of all Senate Republicans, opposing Pete Heget for the Minister of Defense, Tulsi Gabard for Director of National Intelligence and Robert F Kennedy, Jr. as a health secretary.
He stressed that the Congress is a joint branch of the President's government and is financial responsibility for confirming the federal officials who “have authentic devotion to the rule of law above all.”
“The burden of our power to advise and consent is never lost on me,” said McConnell, which he himself thwarted a very agenda of the democratic president in the legislative branch.
At the end of their speech, the senators and employees applauded and gave him a standing ovation.
The Kentucky politician has developed a reputation of cunning tactitis and eternal thorn in the country of Democrats. Even when his party was in the minority, McConnell used mysterious procedures and dumb political force to achieve sometimes seismic results.
In one of his most deceiving maneuvers, he retained the nomination of the US Supreme Court Barack Obama at the end of his second term.
The blockade allowed the arriving President Trump to appoint a conservative judge instead, making the way for an extensive transformation of the highest court in the nation. This, in turn, has led to the overturn of national abortion rights and the widespread expansion of presidential immunity and power.
McConnell also led the Trump processing of the federal judicial system, helping the president appoint a new sheet of conservative judges in the United States.
But McConnell has cooled significantly to the former president after the rebellion on January 6, 2021 in the United States Capitol, where McConnell and other lawmakers were swept up to hide from a violent crowd.
“There is no doubt that no President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” McConnell said in a speech after the attack.
Still, he did not vote to condemn Trump on charges of impeachment, stemming from the rebellion.
During the administration of Biden McConnell, he took a hawk position on Ukraine, becoming an outspoken supporter of US support, even when Trump and his base, Magic, called for a reaction to the insulation.
While he was heavily criticized for bending and changing many of the Senate norms to push through his conservative agenda, the longtime Republican emphasized the importance of respecting the legislative body.
“I assure my colleagues that I will deviate with the great hope of endurance – endurance – the Senate as an institution,” McConnell said.