According to the book, McConnell was worried that if he said anything to anger Trump, the President would take out his fury and effectively derail the runoff campaigns of then-Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, the two Republicans battling to hang on to the Georgia seats. In the December call, Trump had told McConnell and GOP senators that Georgia voters would not tolerate Kemp’s assurance that the November election was safe and secure — and contended that Perdue and Loeffler shouldn’t tolerate it either or otherwise they’d lose their races — as the GOP leader stayed quiet on the call.

In an interview with the two reporters in December 2020, McConnell said Trump was looking for a scapegoat ahead of the crucial Georgia runoffs.

“What it looks to me like he’s doing is setting this up so he can blame the governor and the secretary of state if we lose,” McConnell said. “He’s always setting up somebody to blame it on.”

And McConnell didn’t mince words to the reporters about some in Trump’s inner orbit — such as attorneys Sidney Powell and Lin Wood — who were advancing far-fetched conspiracies about the election.

“Everybody around him, except for clowns like Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, are trying to get him to do the right thing,” he said in the interview, referring to the effort to get Trump to accept the fact that he lost and concede the race.