Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) gave a very frank interview with CNN’s Manu Raju about his party’s chances of retaking the U.S. Senate in 2024 and reflected on the failures of 2022.

“Leader McConnell telling CNN’s Manu Raju in an exclusive candid phone interview, quote, you’ll love this, ‘We do have the possibility of screwing this up and that gets back to candidate recruitment. I think that we lost Georgia, Arizona, and New Hampshire because we didn’t have competitive candidates’ – that would be last year he means,” began CNN’s John King, who spoke with Raju on Monday.

“This despite an obvious advantage in the upcoming election, Democrats are defending a whopping 23 seats, compared to only 11 Republican-held seats. Right here in studio with me as our chief congressional correspondent, Manu Raju. His candor is borne of experience. He thought in the last couple of cycles he would get and then had a Republican majority. And yet he is in the minority,” King continued, before breaking down the 2024 Senate map.

“McConnell, in the interview with you, focuses on Montana, West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, where you have Democratic incumbents right now in what, in a presidential year should be tough states, right?” King then asked Raju.

“Yeah, And it’s interesting to see, hear him talk about that because he’s seeing this despite all those states that we just saw. He’s really looking at a very small map to take back the majority,” Raju replied.

Raju, on Monday, also published an article detailing his interview with McConnell. In the text, Raju wrote:

“No, no – I’m not,” McConnell said with a chuckle when asked if he were confident they’d take back the majority next year. “I just spent 10 minutes explaining to you how we could screw this up, and we’re working very hard to not let that happen. Let’s put it that way.”

King drilled down with Raju as to why McConnell is lacking confidence and eventually brought the interview to former President Donald Trump.

“One of the things he said is we don’t have an ideological litmus test. We’ll be involved in every general election where we have a legitimate shot of winning. The question is, in the primaries, though, does he expect to have fights with Trump over Republican nominees? Are they going to spend to go against Trump?” King asked, recalling how Trump-backed candidates in 2022 were blamed for losing multiple key Senate races.

“It’s really an interesting question,” Raju replied, adding:

What will Trump do? We don’t really have a sense if he’ll be as aggressive as he was last time, because a lot of this blew up back in his face in the last cycle. What will he do now? Steve Daines, the NRC chairman, Senate GOP campaigner, has been working behind the scenes talking to Trump, and endorsed Trump for his presidential run. Perhaps that could help things going forward, but it’s still uncertain.

“Fascinating interview and interesting. This again, his lack of confidence born of history,” King concluded.

Watch the full clip above via CNN.

The post McConnell Tells CNN He’s Not Confident GOP Will Retake Senate in 2024: Working Not to ‘Screw This Up’ Like Last Time first appeared on Mediaite.

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