Fox News host Sean Hannity went after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for undercutting weak GOP Senate candidates with his sly dig this week about “quality.”
In light of flagging GOP poll numbers, McConnell appeared to downgrade his earlier hopes that Republicans would retake the Senate in the midterms because the candidates were less than top notch. Unlike the House, “Senate races are just different — they’re statewide. Candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome,” McConnell told reporters Thursday.
A number of the candidates in trouble are those pushed by McConnell foe Donald Trump.
Hannity accused the senator of abandoning his own party’s candidates.
“Democrats are painting Republican Senate candidates in upcoming elections and midterms as cruel and out of touch,” Hannity said Friday. “Apparently Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is content to leave them out to dry and fend for themselves.”
Hannity believes the only candidates short on quality are Democrats, like Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who’s running for the Senate against Trump pick and former TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz. Hannity bashed Fetterman’s “devout socialist style.”
How about “you get out there, Mitch, and fight for your team?” asked Hannity. “What’s your agenda, Mitch, or would you rather just sit by and watch helplessly as Democrats lie to your face, pass another $500 billion green energy boondoggle next year?”
Or is it “maybe Mitch McConnell hates Donald Trump so much that he would probably rather see Trump-endorsed candidates lose because he might think that would hurt Donald Trump? His time as a leader has come to an end,” Hannity added.
McConnell, who has yet to reply to Hannity, didn’t single out any candidate as lacking quality when he spoke to reporters. But his dig reflected frustrations in the GOP about controversial Republican Senate candidates with little or no political experience who are stumbling in the general election polls. Those include most notably Oz; author, investment banker and Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance; and former football star Herschel Walker, who’s running for the Senate in Georgia.
In Oz’s latest mocked blunder, he moaned in a video, originally made in April, about the high cost of “crudité” in a city that prefers Philly cheesesteaks. He also referred to the well-known Pennsylvania grocery store Redner’s, where he was shopping for raw vegetables, as “Wegner’s.”
Oz’s Democratic rival, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, quickly trolled Oz that Pennsylvania voters know “crudité” as something far less highbrow: a veggie platter. Smart-aleck Philadelphians and Stephen Colbert quickly piled on.
Sources told Rolling Stone that even Trump is growing frustrated with Oz, whom he has championed.
He’s going to “f**king lose” unless something drastically changes, Trump has complained about his pick, sources told the publication.
Trump for now, however, is staying the course. He announced Friday that he will travel to Pennsylvania for a Sept. 3 rally in support of Oz.
Watch Hannity’s entire monologue.