By Paul Gattis
U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks said in a press release Monday he wants to “fire” U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell as the top Republican in the Senate.
Brooks has also launched firemcconnell.com where “conservatives around the country” can sign a petition opposing McConnell and called on his rivals in Alabama’s Senate race – Katie Britt and Mike Durant – to join him in.
Brooks, who is endorsed by former President Donald Trump, framed his opposition to McConnell as “McConnell versus Trump in a war for the heart and soul of the Republican Party” in a video posted on the website.
“McConnell hates Trump; hates the candidates Trump has endorsed; hates the MAGA agenda; hates principled conservatives; and hates the House Freedom Caucus,” Brooks said in the press release. “This race is not about me: it’s about Donald Trump and the MAGA agenda vs Mitch McConnell and the bought and paid for special interest agenda. It is time for conservatives to choose sides.”
McConnell, of course, is a north Alabama native who visited his hometown of Athens last year.
Just over two months until the Republican primary, Brooks’ announcement Monday may well have a two-pronged strategy: Reinforce his alignment with Trump, which the former president has started to question, and spotlight that Brooks believes McConnell is funneling millions of dollars into a negative ad campaign against Brooks.
Alabama’s Future, an Alabama-based super political action committee founded in October 2021, has spent $2.9 million in advertising in 2022 opposing Brooks’ Senate candidacy. At the same time, the super PAC has not disclosed the source of its funding because it had not raised any money by the most recent campaign finance filing deadline at the end of 2021, according to Federal Election Commission records.
However, the ads run by Alabama’s Future appear similar to ads run in 2017 against Brooks by the McConnell-controlled Senate Leadership Fund. Both ads, five years apart, site identical votes in Congress from 2015 that portrayed Brooks aligning with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“McConnell will do everything he can to defeat me because he’s determined to stop (Trump’s) MAGA movement and Donald Trump’s endorsed candidates,” Brooks said in the video.
At a Senate campaign town hall Saturday in Cullman, Brooks alluded to the attack ads.
“These people who run these ads, they don’t care about truth. Not one bit,” Brooks said. “Their job is to win an election. Their job is to say whatever needs to be said to help them win an election.”
Britt’s campaign dismissed Brooks announcement Monday as a “gimmick.”
“Mo Brooks has resorted to desperate gimmicks to try and win the people of Alabama’s support,” said Sean Ross, spokesman for Britt’s campaign. “Alabamians want a Senator who will stand up for them and best defend our Christian conservative values. Mo Brooks isn’t doing well in the race because he hasn’t done that while in Congress or across his 40-year political career. Alabamians don’t want a do-nothing career politician, and they don’t want a flip-flopper who was featured in a Lincoln Project ad attacking President Trump in 2020.”
In a story last week by Politico, Texas Sen. John Cornyn – a McConnell ally and a potential candidate to someday become Republican leader – criticized Brooks and described Britt or Durant as a “no-lose” proposition for Republican senators.
“People know what [Brooks] was like in the House,” Cornyn said. “And I think there’s a general desire to have people that will be constructive and that we can work with. So that’s my view, and that’s probably the view of most of the conference.”
