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Senator Mitch McConnell is warning that Donald Trump’s turn towards “America First”-style isolationism is dangerous for the country and the world, and recalls the times before World War II.
“We’re in a very, very dangerous world right now, reminiscent of before World War Two,” the Kentucky Republican told the Financial Times in an interview Tuesday, “Even the slogan is the same: ‘America First.’ That was what they said in the ’30s,” he added.
The senator noted that “the cost of deterrence is considerably less than the cost of war,” and called on Republicans to return to a more internationalist version of American leadership, like that of Ronald Reagan during the Cold War.
“To most American voters, I think the simple answer is, ‘Let’s stay out of it,’” McConnell said. “That was the argument made in the ’30s and that just won’t work. Thanks to Reagan, we know what does work — not just saying peace through strength, but demonstrating it.”
The Independent has contacted the Trump transition team for comment.
McConnell, who announced earlier this year he would step down as Senate Republican leader while serving out the rest of his term, has been increasingly vocal in his criticism of Trump’s foreign policy goals in recent days.
McConnell endorsed Trump in 2024
McConnell endorsed Trump in 2024 (Getty Images)
“Within the party Ronald Reagan once led so capably, it is increasingly fashionable to suggest that the sort of global leadership he modeled is no longer America’s place,” McConnell said at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum this month.
“But let’s be absolutely clear: America will not be made great again by those who are content to manage our decline,” he added, referencing Trump’s campaign slogan of Make America Great Again.
McConnell also claimed in a recently published biography that the MAGA movement “is completely wrong,” and Donald Trump has “done a lot of damage” to the Republican Party.
After the January 6, 2021 insurrection, the Kentucky senator called Trump’s actions a “disgraceful dereliction of duty,” though he did not vote to impeach his fellow Republican, and later endorsed him in the 2024 election.