During McConnell's weekly press conference, he was asked if he was pleased with Republicans seeking office in the 2022 midterms praising Trump, with whom McConnell has sparred over the election.
"Well, I do think we need to be talking about the future, not the past," McConnell responded, according to The Hill.
"I think the American people are focusing on this administration ... ``It's my hope that the 2022 election will be a referendum on the performance of the current administration, not a rehash of suggestions of what may have happened in 2020," he said.
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Trump has maintained his assertions that the 2020 election was stolen from him, making the statement at rallies and in press statements issued through his Save America PAC.
McConnell argued those claims in a speech on the Senate floor earlier this year, saying that there was no evidence of fraud "anywhere near the massive scale that would have tipped this entire election."
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Trump has shot back at McConnell, saying he should be dismissed from his leadership position for helping Democrats get the short-term debt ceiling rather than proceeding to fight them. He also has criticized McConnell for not supporting him on his claims of election fraud.
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"Mitch McConnell should have challenged that election because even back then, we had plenty of material to challenge that election. He should have challenged the election," he told a recent Iowa rally.
Nine months removed from the White House, Trump remains very popular with most Republican voters and extremely influential with GOP politicians, as he proceeds to play a kingmaker's role in party politics and teases another presidential run in 2024. But he also repeatedly makes unfounded claims that the 2020 election was rampant with "massive voter fraud" and "rigged." And the former president continues to push for election audits in numerous states across the country.
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Trump spent nearly two hours of comments at his most recent rally – a week and a half ago in Iowa – and at a closed-door speech last week at a donor retreat hosted by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the reelection arm of the Senate Republicans, relitigating his election defeat.
While McConnell once again aimed at Trump without naming the former president, Trump continues to blast McConnell — by name.
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