{"id":163204,"date":"2025-09-05T02:53:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T02:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trumps-second-presidency-is-most-dangerous-period-since-second-world-war-mitch-mcconnell-says-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T02:53:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T02:53:18","slug":"trumps-second-presidency-is-most-dangerous-period-since-second-world-war-mitch-mcconnell-says-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trumps-second-presidency-is-most-dangerous-period-since-second-world-war-mitch-mcconnell-says-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s second presidency is \u2018most dangerous period\u2019 since second world war, Mitch McConnell says – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Senate leader likens administration\u2019s fixation with tariffs to isolationist policies of the US in the 1930s
The world during Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> second presidency has entered a period of danger with \u201ccertain similarities to the 30s\u201d, according to Mitch McConnell<\/a>, the veteran Republican former Senate leader.
McConnell made the comments primarily in reference to tariffs and foreign affairs, in a wide-ranging interview with the Lexington Herald-Leader published on Wednesday<\/a> as he prepares to enter his final year in office.
Calling it \u201cthe most dangerous period since before world war two\u201d, McConnell was openly critical of the Trump administration\u2019s<\/a> fixation with trade tariffs<\/a>, which he likened to the isolationist policies of the US in the 1930s that historians say hastened a global depression that paved the path to conflict.
But while decrying the lack of US preparedness to confront authoritarian regimes abroad, the 83-year-old McConnell \u2013 a senator since 1985 and leader of Republicans in the chamber for a record 18 years until he stood down earlier this year, then announced his upcoming retirement<\/a> \u2013 did not discuss the Trump administration\u2019s own moves towards authoritarianism.
He also glossed over his own responsibility for handing Trump so much power. As majority leader, McConnell maneuvered to deny Barack Obama a rightful supreme court pick, and rushed to give Trump another in the final weeks of his first term in 2020. It made McConnell the architect of the current ultraconservative 6-3 majority on a panel that critics say has been overly loyal to Trump, not least last year\u2019s astonishing ruling giving him immunity for criminal acts<\/a>.
In the interview, McConnell said he had been focusing on \u201cdefense and foreign policy\u201d in the months since returning to the Senate\u2019s back benches, and had become worried about the direction he believed Trump\u2019s \u201cmake America great again\u201d (Maga) trade policies were leading the world.
\u201cI think this is the most dangerous period since before world war two. There\u2019s certain similarities right now to the 30s,\u201d he said.
\u201c[Then president] Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill<\/a> in 1930, widely believed by historians and economists to have taken the depression worldwide. Those who were totally anxious to stay out of all of what was going on in Europe were called \u2018America First\u2019. Sound familiar?
\u201cSo what do we have today? North Korea, China, Russia, Iran and Iran\u2019s proxies. They\u2019re very different kinds of countries, but they have one thing in common: They hate us.\u201d
The interview was conducted before this week\u2019s gathering in Beijing<\/a> of world leaders largely hostile to the US, a meeting of authoritarians including Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin, China\u2019s Xi Jinping and North Korea\u2019s Kim Jong-un that some analysts see as an unprecedented redrawing of the global balance of power<\/a>.
McConnell, however, believes the US should already have been readying itself to meet the challenges posed by the rise of autocrats in other nations, but had not done so. He cited, indirectly, Trump\u2019s failure to handle effectively Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, the biggest conflict in Europe since the second world war, now well into its fourth year, on Nato\u2019s border.
\u201cWhen you talk about preparedness, we\u2019re not prepared like we should be,\u201d he said.
\u201cWith regard to Ukraine, what we need to do is avoid the headline at the end of the war, \u2018Russia wins, America loses.\u2019 It has huge worldwide implications.\u201d
But he said he also saw financial benefits for the US in committing more than $130bn<\/a> in support for Ukraine\u2019s military defense and humanitarian aid, while Trump has flip-flopped on the issue<\/a>.
\u201cFor those who are concerned about the money, I think it\u2019s important to remember that about half of the money was spent in this country, including in Kentucky, [with] 38 states modernizing our own industrial bases,\u201d McConnell said.
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\u201cWe\u2019ve sent older weapons to Ukraine.\u201d
After leaving office in 2021, Trump told a donors\u2019 conference that McConnell was \u201ca dumb son of a bitch<\/a>\u201d, and had previously nicknamed him \u201cOld Crow\u201d. In the Herald-Leader interview, McConnell rejected the opportunity to fire back.
\u201cMy own view about the leader job, whether you\u2019re the president or the leader of one of the parties, is the Ronald Reagan quote that I thought made the most sense. He had what he called the 11th commandment: \u2018Do not speak ill of another Republican,\u2019\u201d he said.
Yet McConnell did appear sensitive to a suggestion he was standing down because he had grown unpopular in Kentucky, amplified by the hostility of Nate Morris<\/a>, the Republican businessman and Trump ultra-loyalist tipped to succeed him as senator. \u201cI\u2019m a Trump guy, not a McConnell boy,\u201d Morris has said.
McConnell said his record spoke for him. \u201cThese suggestions about who\u2019s popular and who isn\u2019t irritate the hell out of me, because when you get into the leadership position, you get beat up,\u201d he said.
\u201cHow do you judge popularity? Seven victories in Kentucky, nine victories in the [Senate Republican] conference.\u201d
Asked what he thought his legacy would be, McConnell said he was most proud of the 2004 Kentucky tobacco buyout<\/a>, which paid the state\u2019s farmers to abandon their crops. \u201cAt the federal level it would be the courts,\u201d he added.
He declined an invitation to say whether he thought the US was in a better position now than before the Trump era. \u201cI\u2019m not sure enough time has passed to start evaluating who made a difference and who didn\u2019t,\u201d he said.
But he added he had \u201cthought a good bit\u201d about whether people would think he had. \u201cI would like everybody to be able to say, you know, I actually had an impact in a positive way on the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Former Senate leader likens administration\u2019s fixation with tariffs to isolationist policies of the US in the 1930sThe world during Donald Trump\u2019s second presidency has entered a period of danger with \u201ccertain similarities to the 30s\u201d, according to Mitch McConnell, the veteran Republican former Senate leader.McConnell made the comments primarily in reference to tariffs and foreign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":163205,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}