- McConnell was reportedly "exhilarated" after January 6 because he thought Trump had been discredited.
- "He put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger," he said after the attack.
- McConnell also said that Trump, who he hasn't spoken to since December 2020, is "despicable."
In the immediate hours after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was reportedly optimistic that the violent riot had finally discredited former President Donald Trump.
"I feel exhilarated by the fact that this fellow finally, totally discredited himself," McConnell told New York Times reporter Jonathan Martin in the hours after the attack, adding that Trump was "was pretty thoroughly discredited by this."
That's according to an excerpt from "This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America's Future," a forthcoming book from Martin and fellow Times reporter Alex Burns, that was reported by the Washington Post on Monday.
"He put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger," said McConnell, reportedly standing in a doorway of the Capitol after midnight. "Couldn't have happened at a better time."
McConnell also reportedly asked Martin "what do you hear about the Twenty-Fifth Amendment?" hoping to gain insight into whether members of Trump's cabinet were interested in removing the former president.
According to the book, McConnell also called Trump a "despicable person" in a meeting with staffers late into the evening after the attack.
But while McConnell hasn't spoken to Trump since December 2020 — once the Electoral College had affirmed President Joe Biden's election victory — he later backed down from the idea of potentially impeaching Trump, citing a legal argument popular among Republican senators that impeaching a former president was not appropriate.
"I didn't get to be leader by voting with five people in the conference," McConnell told a friend, according to the book.
"If President Trump were still in office, I would have carefully considered whether the House managers proved their specific charge," McConnell said on the floor the day the Senate acquitted Trump. "But in this case, that question is moot. Because former President Trump is constitutionally not eligible for conviction."
A spokesman for McConnell declined to comment to the Post.