Brooks seizes on Trump-McConnell feud

Rep. Mo Brooks is seizing on President Trump’s public criticism of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to attack his rival in Alabama’s Republican Senate primary, Sen. Luther Strange.

In a new ad released Friday, Brooks says Trump is “absolutely right” to criticize McConnell over the failure to pass ObamaCare repeal legislation in the Senate.

“You’re absolutely right, Mr. President, and Luther Strange and Mitch McConnell, they are dead wrong. They have failed you on ObamaCare, building the wall, balancing the budget,” Brooks says in the ad.

Brooks concludes the ad by using Trump’s catch phrase from “The Apprentice.”

{mosads}“McConnell and Strange are weak, but together, we can be strong. Mr. President, isn’t it time we tell McConnell and Strange: ‘You’re fired’?”

Trump endorsed Strange this week in the Alabama primary, siding with McConnell in a race that also includes former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, who is leading polls. The GOP primary is Tuesday.

McConnell and Trump have been sparring ever since the Kentucky senator on Tuesday suggested the president had “excessive expectations” about what could be done in the Senate and on what timeline.

Trump has ripped McConnell on a near-daily basis ever since.

The attacks have played right into the hands of Brooks and Moore, who have been framing McConnell throughout the campaign as a prime example of the Washington “swamp.”

The top-two candidates will move on to a September runoff if no candidate wins the majority of the vote on Tuesday, the expected outcome. Both polling and consensus from Alabama Republicans puts Moore in first place, while a new poll released Thursday shows Strange with a slight lead over Brooks for the second runoff spot. 

The state’s special election is to serve out the remainder of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s term. Strange was appointed earlier this year by then-Gov. Robert Bentley (R) to fill the seat until the December general election.