Joe Scarborough has claimed that Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell “wants the dirty truth told about Donald Trump” after the pair issued statements in disagreement.
The Republican leader in the Senate, Mr McConnell, told a press briefing on Tuesday that he did not agree with the former president’s wishes to shorten sentences for accused Capitol rioters.
“What we saw here on January 6 (2021) was an effort to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another,” Mr McConnell said of the riot.
“My view is I would not be in favour of shortening any of the sentences for any of the people who pleaded guilty to crimes,” the Republican added.
Commenting on the divergence between Mr McConnell and Mr Trump, his de facto former boss, the host of Morning Joe on MSNBC said on Wednesday it was clear “he wants Trump out of the (Republican) party”.
“Time and again its one thing that Mitch has been umabigious about, that people that committed crimes on January 6 should be punished, that January 6 was an atrocity and whatever Donald Trump is saying about January 6 is not true,” said Scarborough.
“And again, he wants to empower the January 6 commission, which of course he was against [it being] bipartisan....but he’s certainly getting behind this one,” said the host of the House committee now probing what happened during the riot.
“I think he wants the dirty truth told about Donald Trump because he wants Trump out of the party as much as...well...a lot of people such as Liz Cheney or some others,” the TV host told his colleagues and viewers.
At the weekend, Mr Trump told a rally in Conroe, Texas, that he would issue pardons for accused Capitol rioters if he was reelected as president in 2024 – although he as not confirmed he would run.
“Another thing we’ll do — and so many people have been asking me about it — if I run and if I win, we will treat those people from January 6 fairly. We will treat them fairly,” Mr Trump said, “and if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons.”
Mr McConnell, who has at times been criticised for cooperating with the former president following the riot and his second impeachment, argued on Tuesday that “165 have pleaded guilty to criminal behaviour. None of the trials have been finished yet, but 165 have pleaded guilty to criminal behavior.”
The disagreement between the two Republican figureheads comes amid revelations that Mr Trump proposed seizing voting machines during the 2020 election and also asked his vice president, Mike Pence, to throw out the results on 6 January 2021.
The House committee, which was created following Republican resistance to a larger commission in the Senate, is expected to complete its work by October.
