Politico: “Former President Donald Trump ripped into Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell before a Republican National Committee donor retreat Saturday evening, deriding him as a ‘dumb son of a bitch.’ Trump veered off his prepared during a roughly 50-minute speech before several hundred well-heeled GOP donors at his Mar-a-Lago resort in South Florida, saying that he was ‘disappointed’ in former Vice President Mike Pence, calling last year’s presidential election election a ‘fraud’ and mocking Dr. Anthony Fauci. The former president spent several minutes tearing into McConnell, saying that he didn’t do enough to defend him during the February impeachment trial. At one point, three people familiar with the remarks said, Trump called the Senate GOP leader a ‘dumb son of a bitch.’ Trump also went after McConnell’s wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, for resigning her cabinet post after the Jan. 6 insurrection.”

“A spokesperson for McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who was just reelected to a seventh six-year term last year, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The latest verbal broadside against McConnell, the most powerful Republican still in elected office, comes as Trump reemerges as a dominant force in GOP politics. The former president has, in recent days, sought to rev up his small-dollar fundraising apparatus, and he is issuing a steady stream of endorsements for the 2022 midterm elections, in addition to battles over state party chairmanships. Though many of Trump’s 2022 endorsements align with McConnell’s preferences, including backing a number of incumbent GOP senators for reelection, he has occasionally gotten crosswise with the Senate leader. Trump has pledged to oppose GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski in next year’s Alaska elections after Murkowski voted for his conviction in the Senate trial, though McConnell and his top allies say they will support Murkowski’s reelection. It isn’t the first time Trump has gone after McConnell since leaving office. In February, Trump released an extensive statement bashing McConnell for being ‘a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack.’ The statement came just days after McConnell took to the Senate floor to flay Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.”