US Senator Mitch McConnell has announced that he will not seek re-election in 2026 following a 40-year career in Congress.
McConnell, 83, was the longest-serving party leader in Senate history, but stepped down from Republican leadership while facing health issues.
Despite supporting much of Donald Trump’s agenda during his first administration, McConnell has become a more vocal critic of the president as he faces retirement at the end of his term.
“I have some unfinished business to attend to,” he said in a speech on the Senate floor that announced that his “current term in the Senate will be my last”.
In his speech, McConnell encouraged his fellow Senators to use their constitutional powers at a time when Trump has sought to greatly expand the reach of the presidency.
McConnell has voted against Trump’s appointments the most of all Senate Republicans by opposing Pete Hegseth for defense secretary, Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence and Robert F Kennedy Jr for health secretary.
He stressed that Congress is a co-equal branch of government to the president’s, and it was a fundemental responsibility to confirm federal officials who “possess authentic devotion to the rule of law above all else”.
“The weight of our power to advise and consent has never been lost on me,” said McConnell, who had himself thwarted many a Democratic president’s agenda in the legislative branch.
At the end of his speech, senators and staff applauded and gave him a standing ovation.
The Kentucky politician developed a reputation as a wily tactitian and perpetual thorn in the side of Democrats. Even when his party was in the minority, McConnell used arcane procedures and blunt political force to achieve sometimes seismic results.
In one of his most stunning manoeuvres, he held up President Barack Obama’s US Supreme Court nomination at the end of his second term.
The blockade allowed an incoming president Trump to appoint a conservative judge instead, paving the way for a sweeping transformation of the nation’s highest court. That, in turn, has led to the overturning of national abortion rights and a broad expansion of presidential immunity and power.
McConnell also oversaw Trump’s remaking of the federal judiciary, helping the president appoint a new slate of conservative judges across the US.
But McConnell cooled significantly on the former president after the 6 January 2021 riot at the US Capitol, where McConnell and other lawmakers were swept into hiding from a violent mob.
“There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” McConnell said in a speech following the attack.
Yet he did not vote to convict Trump on impeachment charges that stemmed from the riot.
During the Biden administration, McConnell took a hawkish stance on Ukraine, becoming an outspoken advocate for US support even as Trump and his Maga base called for an insolationist response.
While he was heavily criticised for bending and changing many of the Senate norms to push through his conservative agenda, the longtime Republican stressed the importance to respect the legislative body.
“I assure my colleagues I will depart with the great hope of the endurance – the endurance – of the Senate as an institution,” McConnell said.
