Donald Trump attacks Mitch McConnell and takes credit for his re-election in bizarre graph emailed to lawmakers saying 'Sadly Mitch forgot. He was the first one off the ship!'
President Donald Trump attacked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and sought to take credit for his reelection after plotting with House Republicans Monday on finding a way to overturn the election.
An aide to the president sent House Republicans a graph showing a series of polls conducted on McConnell's race against Democrat Amy McGrath – and presented just two events on the timeline, both involving Trump.
The graph suggests Trump's June 19 tweet touting McConnell was determinative, and also shows an Oct. 31 Trump robocall that directly preceded an uptick in McConnell's support.
'From POTUS,' it said, using an acronym for the president.
A Trump assistant emailed House Republicans with a graph where he took credit for reelected Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
''SADLY, MITCH FORGOT. HE WAS THE FIRST ONE OFF THE SHIP!' said a headline on the top of the graph.
Trump assistant Molly Michael sent the information 'at the president's request.'
Unstated was that Trump throughout the campaign attacked the polls as fake – and that in his own race many of them were off the mark. It also discounts other factors, such as the economy, the performance of his opponent, and what turned out to be a surprisingly good environment for Republicans across the House and Senate, where McConnell was never among the most likely incumbents to be defeated.
His attack came days after McConnell finally acknowledged Joe Biden as president-elect, after the Electoral College met to make his 306 to 232 win over Trump official.
Congress meets to count the votes Jan. 6. There have been reports McConnell is discouraging his own members from voicing election challenges.
Trump met Monday at the White House with House Republicans who have echoed his calls of election fraud. For a challenge to go forward, a House and Senate member would each have to sign onto a letter, but it would likely to go down to defeat in the Democratic House and even in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Trump sent out the attack after McConnell acknowledged Joe Biden as president-elect
McConnell was first elected in 1984
Trump turned up pressure on his party in the House as he continues to huddle with people claiming election fraud, including former campaign lawyer Sidney Powell
Among those blasting out the email was Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a follower of the QAnon conspiracy theory who was at the White House for a Trump meeting Monday.
She wrote that McConnell should ''support' Trump 'and join our objection on Jan. 6.'
'Look at how much President Trump's endorsement tweet helped him,' she wrote.
Trump's attack on McConnell comes as he has been turning to former campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, who has put forward conspiracy theories about the election being rigged by Venezuela, Cuba, China, and voting machines that 'flipped' votes to Biden from Trump.
He also met with lawyer Rudy Giuliani Monday, as well as former Ovestock CEO Patrick Byrne, who has touted similar election conspiracies and who had a lengthy romance with Maria Butina, who pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as a Russian agent. Byrne has produced lengthy writings about his decision to bring information about the affair to federal authorities.
Trump also attacked McConnell last week, retweeting a DailyMail.com story about Trump allies who slammed the Senate leader after he congratulated Biden. 'Mitch, 75,000,000 VOTES, a record for a sitting President (by a lot). Too soon to give up. Republican Party must finally learn to fight. People are angry!' Trump wrote, pointing to his own 74 million popular vote total, which fell short of Biden's 81 million.
Representative-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene said McConnell should join a challenge to the Electoral College votes on January 6