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Washington: US Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s said he would step down from his leadership role, leaving a power vacuum atop the party he has piloted for nearly 17 years, more than any other party leader in the chamber’s history.
“I turned 82 last week. The end of my contributions are closer than I prefer,” McConnell said on the Senate floor, his voice breaking with emotion. “Father Time remains undefeated. I’m no longer the young man sitting in the back hoping colleagues remember my name. It’s time for the next generation of leadership.”
The 82-year-old Kentucky senator’s departure will remove a central character in negotiations with Democrats and the White House on spending deals to keep the federal government funded and avert a shutdown.
It will also mark the step back of an orderly counterpart to the tumultuous approach of Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, and the hardline House Freedom Caucus ahead of the November election for president, the full House of Representatives and a third of the Senate.
And it will cap the career of a senator reviled by Democrats for having used unprecedented tactics to cement a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority that has acted aggressively to end the national right to abortion and expand gun rights.
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McConnell twice last summer froze up while making remarks in public, raising questions about his ability to continue to carry out the duties of his high-powered job. Those concerns were not assuaged by an August 31 note from the congressional physician that cleared McConnell to go on working.
Now with Republicans having to elect a new party leader, conservative pressure to hang tough against a moderate spending deal with Democrats could weigh more heavily on the budget negotiations and the leadership election.
McConnell lashed out at the twice-impeached Trump for falsely claiming that widespread fraud cost him the 2020 election, the theme of the then-president’s speech on Jan. 6, 2021, shortly before his followers stormed the U.S. Capitol.
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