Ted Cruz said he posed that question to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell during the leadership election meeting after the shocking election losses of 2022.

"...I think a Republican leader should actually lead this conference and should advance the priorities of Republicans. I can tell you what I said when we had that leadership election in November of 2022..." 

And then he proceeds to rip away on McConnell.

McConnell wouldn't answer him, but we have the answer for sure...now. We don't even need a pie chart to figure out what side the "Republican" minority leader is on - his. Whatever his agenda is, that's the agenda, and be damned to "priorities of Republicans."

It is past time for Mitch McConnell to step down as minority leader. I don't mean "soon" while he gathers his paperwork, thinks about retiring, or whatever. 

There wasn't any misreading of the room here by McConnell. No gentle tweaking and massaging of citizens' fervent wishes with basic humanitarian demands to produce a superior end product. Not at all. Even from the Democratic bowels of inner cities like Chicago and New York, the howled directives were as plain as the nose on his obstinate face - shut the border down.

Shut the whole human tsunami down NOW. Secure the border NOW.

A blind and deaf man would have heard the roars and rushed to turn the spigot off lickety-split. Rushed to be the hero of the moment - the bi-partisan Mighty Mouse saving the country's day.

Republicans? 

I'd be cutting McConnell a huss if I said we drew the dumb one. We didn't. 

Much like former House Speaker Paul Ryan (*spits*), we've drawn the one who feels he knows best what to do and will arrogantly disregard any popular will to the contrary.

After all, he's in the catbird seat - let the little people yowl in frustration. What's it to a Brahmin dealmaker?

...What McConnell has done in taking an issue that had gone absolutely, utterly septic for the Democrat Party — an issue that held the promise to ruin Democrats in all federal (and quite a few state) elections this fall — and offer a Solyndra-style bailout in the form of that border bill has been to utterly and completely neutralize the issue.

Because Republican voters now know that the GOP candidate running for the Senate in their states is utterly worthless on the issue no matter what he or she says.

They know this because they now know that the Republican leadership is completely willing to sell them out on the border issue. But for the public outcry, they’d have already done it with this atrocity of a bill. That would have gone straight to the House floor, and it would have been up to Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team to keep it from getting a vote while being pulverized by the Washington media and political class.

Johnson has all of 219 votes in his caucus. There is little reason to believe he could hold that slim majority together to kill that bill if it came over to the House.

And McConnell was more than happy to jam up Johnson and keep him from having a policy win. McConnell was quite happy to stab Johnson in the throat the way he repeatedly stabbed John Boehner in the throat before Boehner realized it was better to join the D.C. slimeball cabal than to attempt to fight it (and, yes, that didn’t take very long, to be sure).

Maybe Johnson is made of sterner stuff. But maybe we’ve been through enough of this crap.

Maybe it’s time that there are consequences to this kind of Failure Theater.

We are all going to pay for McConnell's secret squirrel approach - perhaps catastrophically both in November and the country's future - yet he should face no accountability again for his treacherous double dealing?

The Law Firm of Schumer & McConnell (“The Firm™️”) has had a long, successful run at the game it plays—writing bills in secret, then ramming them through quickly, under artificial time constraints contrived by The Firm™️.

This time it didn’t work.

I hope it never works again.

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) February 7, 2024

McConnell's whipping around like a snek to bite convenient dupe James Lankford won't help him either. Everyone knows who was pulling the puppet strings to get this deal with Schumer's toadies done. Oh, sure - Lankford fell for the snek oil, and that's on him. But McConnell was the man selling it.

And let's be perfectly clear - McConnell didn't suddenly "realize" a damn thing. He knew all along this was a Schlitz sammich. His only concern was could he get it wrapped and sold before the stench completely overwhelmed the buyers.

...Then when Mitch realized everyone hated it, he told all of the GOP senators to announce they are against it. Leaving Lankford's reputation in shambles. Everyone on X considers him a traitorous RINO. In reality, so is Mitch McConnell. But he is trying to let Lankford take the hit entirely for this one.

Senator James Lankford ... threw away his career in the Senate for nothing. Mitch McConnell put him in charge of negotiating on behalf of the GOP for a border security bill.

Then when Mitch realized everyone hated it, he told all of the GOP senators to announce they are against… pic.twitter.com/EY4hsV24iM

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) February 6, 2024

McConnell has got to go. I mean, like, this afternoon - gone. 

That's all there is to it.