'Trump up for grabs': Mitch McConnell wants 'the GOP’s Reaganites' to 'speak out'

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was recently fact-checked when she claimed, during an appearance on Fox News, that President Donald Trump invented the term "peace through strength." In fact, President Ronald Reagan used that term during the 1980s — before the 27-year-old Leavitt was even born — and considered it a core element of his foreign policy. And centrist Democrats in swing states and swing districts would tell 1980s voters that they joined Reagan in believing in "peace through strength."

One of the GOP hawks who has a long history of calling for "peace through strength" is Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), now 83. But many MAGA Republicans favor a more isolationist foreign policy, embracing the paleoconservative "America First" ideology of 1992 presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan.

In an article published on June 27, Politico's Jonathan Martin examines the foreign policy differences between MAGA Republicans and McConnell — who, Martin emphasizes, "thinks the GOP’s Reaganites must speak out."

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"McConnell's hope is that after the success Israel and the U.S. have jointly had over the skies of Iran," Martin reports, "he can be something of an evangelist to convert Trump to the peace-through-strength gospel of interventionism that the octogenarian lawmaker has prioritized in the final Congress of his four-decade Senate career. Particularly with Trump irritated at broadcaster Tucker Carlson, who McConnell faults for polluting so many Republican minds, the senator sniffs opportunity."

Interviewed for Martin's article, McConnell — a self-described "Cold Warrior" from way back — told him, "He's got some pretty rabid isolationists over at DoD (the U.S. Department of Defense). You could argue the vice president, (JD Vance), is in that group. None of those people who've read history."

McConnell, according to Martin, is trying to "nudge Trump and his inner circle to apply the lessons of Iran to Ukraine and, more broadly, to recognize the value of defense investments that can produce drone technology and perhaps the next generation of the B-2s that soared undetected above Iran." And the former GOP leader of the U.S. Senate, Martin added, "praised Trump's cajoling Europe into higher defense spending."

McConnell told Martin, "We need to not just preach to our allies; we need to do the same. Most of (Trump's) advisers don't agree with what I’m saying."

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Despite all the animosity between Trump and McConnell, the veteran senator endorsed him in 2024 — although it wasn't a very warm or enthusiastic endorsement.

The Kentucky Republican, according to Martin, "views Trump" as "wholly up for grabs on most policy issues but also vulnerable to the arguments of those around him."

"And McConnell sees mostly just isolationists in Trump's ear," Martin observes. "This, of course, would amuse the likes of Carlson and Steve Bannon, who see the power of Fox News, Israel's government and their supporters in the U.S. as a formidable axis of influence around the president. Yet McConnell feels outnumbered, believing that Vance, Trump friend-turned-negotiator Steve Witkoff and much of the Pentagon are determined to push the president toward a move dovish posture abroad."

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Read Jonathan Martin's full article for Politico at this link.