Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the outgoing Senate Republican leader, is attacking the America First movement and key components of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s foreign policy. In an essay for Foreign Affairs, McConnell urged Trump to abandon America First positions, which he describes as misguided steps towards isolationism and decline.

The 82-year-old Kentucky Republican emphasized the supposed importance of U.S. global interventions, calling for increased foreign aid, support for NATO, and more military aid to Ukraine. During his first presidential administration, Trump pushed NATO members to meet their funding obligations, suggesting the U.S. would decline to support them if they did not. Additionally, during the 2024 presidential race, the now-President-elect pledged to end the war in Ukraine, negating the need for any additional military aid.

In the essay, McConnell complains about the possibility of the U.S. relinquishing its global primacy, writing, “To pretend that the United States can… afford to shrug off faraway chaos as irrelevant is to ignore its global interests and its adversaries’ global designs.”

In an interview with The Financial Times earlier in December, he appeared to directly compare the rise of the Trump movement to the rise of the Nazis in Germany, telling the newspaper, “We’re in a very, very dangerous world right now, reminiscent of before World War Two. Even the slogan is the same. ‘America First.’ That was what they said in the ’30s.”

His comments signal potential friction between him and the incoming Trump administration, especially regarding the United States’ role in Ukrainian defense.

The senator, who is set to chair the Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee, plans to use his position to advocate for his preferred policies. The elderly lawmaker has not said whether he will seek reelection in 2026, despite suffering several health incidents in recent years, including at least two instances where he mysteriously froze for a prolonged period while addressing the media.

Image by Gage Skidmore.

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