Pelosi rips McConnell in new book: He’s an ‘enabler of some of the worst stuff’

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tears into Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in a new book, calling him an “enabler of some of the worst stuff” in Congress.

In the book by journalist Susan Page, excerpts of which were obtained by Punch Bowl News, Pelosi expresses her frustration with McConnell and blasts him for his refusal to allow the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda following her death last year.

Ginsburg did lie in state at the Capitol, becoming the first woman to do so, but she was in the Statuary Hall on the House side of the building. McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) did not attend the service. 

“Mitch McConnell is not a force for good in our country,” Pelosi told Page. “He is an enabler of some of the worst stuff, and an instigator of some of it on his own.”

Page wrote that Pelosi proposed that Ginsburg lie in state inside the Capitol Rotunda following her death. 

“McConnell rejected the idea on the grounds that there was no precedent for such treatment of a justice. When William Howard Taft had lain in state in 1930, he had been not only the chief justice but also president, McConnell noted,” Page writes. “He wasn’t swayed by the argument that Ginsburg had achieved an iconic status in American culture, especially for women and girls.” 

Pelosi separately told the veteran journalist she calls McConnell “Moscow Mitch” because she knows it gets under the Republican leader’s skin.

McConnel picked up the nickname in 2019 after facing heavy scrutiny following his decision to block requests from Democratic senators to pass bills aimed at strengthening America’s election infrastructure after U.S. intelligence concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

Over their decades-long tenures in Congress, McConnell and Pelosi have been on opposing sides of a number of legislative battles in their respective chambers.

During former President Trump’s time in office, Pelosi regularly accused McConnell and his Senate GOP caucus of cowering to Trump and enabling his behavior that led to the House twice impeaching the former president.

McConnell often fired back, painting Pelosi and Democrats in the House as partisan and unfair.