In a new book, author Ira Shapiro writes that Sen. McConnell saw the Trump presidency as an opportunity to push his agenda – cut taxes for the rich, attack the ACA, and turn the Supreme Court far to the right. “With the exception of the Affordable Care Act, he accomplished them very well,” Shapiro tells Lawrence O’Donnell. But, he adds, McConnell’s legacy is “far broader and far darker” than just the Trump years.
Panelists discussed the impact of the 2022 midterm elections on the 118th Congress and potential presidential candidates in 2024. The German Marshall Fund hosted this virtual discussion.
Ira Shapiro with Chris Marquette — Oct 24, 2022, 6:00-7:00 pm EDT
Author, Senate commentator, and former Hill staffer Ira Shapiro joins congressional ethics and accountability reporter for CQ Roll Call, Chris Marquette, for a discussion on Shapiro’s new book, The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America, our current political climate, and the state of democracy in these fractious times.
Today’s Senate looks very different from the Senate of the 1960s and 1970s, a time when those serving in Congress put “country over party.” Ira Shapiro, a former longtime Senate staffer and author of the new book The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America, discusses the many functions of the Senate, how it’s failed to provide leadership and what lies ahead of the 2022 elections and beyond. Shapiro is in conversation with Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President Emeritus of the Union of Reform Judaism, about how we can return to a time when Senators worked across the aisle.
Ira Shapiro’s recent book, The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America, chronicles the US Senate during the Trump presidency. As a veteran scholar and former Senate staffer with bipartisan experience, Shapiro determines that the Senate and its Republican members, led by Mitch McConnell (R-KY), ultimately abandoned late Senator John McCain’s (R-AZ) guiding principle ‘Country first’. Can the Senate recover its purpose and help resolve legislation to address America’s fundamental challenges? To discuss these issues, the United States Studies Centre hosted a webinar featuring Ira Shapiro and Bill Kristol, editor-at-large of The Bulwark, Director of Defending Democracy Together, former chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle and one of the most incisive Republican intellectuals and commentators, in conversation with USSC CEO Dr Mike Green and Non-Resident Senior Fellow Bruce Wolpe.
Several of you have asked for my summer reading recommendations. I know this is a bit late, (whatever happened to June and July?), but all of these are worth the wait (and the weight — these aren’t exactly light books).
Dirt Road Revival, by Chloe Maxmin and Canyon Woodward. This is the most thoughtful and uplifting book I’ve read in a long time. It’s written by two young political organizers in Maine (one of whom is now a major force in the state legislature) about how grassroots progressives can regain the trust of America’s Trumpers. Riveting and important.
The Overstory, by Richard Powers. If you haven’t read it yet, please do. It’s a moving and trenchant novel whose major character, it turns out, is our planet.
Dignity in a Digital Age, by Ro Khanna. The progressive and talented congressman from Silicon Valley provides a convincing blueprint for a society in which prosperity is widely shared.
Only the Rich Can Play, by David Wessel. Wessel knows Washington as well if not better than anyone reporting on it, and in this books provides a clear-eyed look at how wealth and power have distorted and corrupted our nation’s capital.
The Democrats’ Failed Attempt to Solve Inequality, by Lily Geismer. An important object lesson in how means became confused with ends when Democrats tried to gain and hold power by giving the oligarchy what it wanted. I have lived much of what she reports.
The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America, by Ira Shapiro. McConnell comes off even worse than you know in this trenchant and disturbing account of the man who brought us the most reactionary Supreme Court in ninety years.
Going Big, by Robert Kuttner. An important argument about how progressives and Democrats could do far better politically if they were more ambitious.
The Ministry of the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson. A taut and powerfully-written novel about what the future may hold.
What are your best summer reads so far?
Guest Column
Saving American Democracy: Focus on the Senate Elections, Corporate Leaders Need to Include Impact on Democracy in Company Political Spending Decisions
By Ira Shapiro
There was a time, in early 2021, to believe that our nation coming out of Covid, having elected Joe Biden president, and responding to the shocking January 6 attack on the Capitol, could begin to heal its divisions. Of course, that hopeful moment was fleeting. America is by all measures even more bitterly divided than at any time since the Civil War. That was true even before the shattering Supreme Court decision to overrule Roe v. Wade, eliminating, for the first time in history, a constitutional right on which millions of Americans relied, fundamental to women’s equality and freedom. Now, buoyed by their victory, opponents of abortion push for further restrictions and outright bans in states across the country. On the other side, abortion rights advocates will “harness rage over the decision to take to the streets, fight back in the courts, and push the Biden administration to do more to protect abortion rights,” reported Kate Zernike in the New York Times.
Amidst this frenetic activity, Democrats should not lose sight of the one thing that can most dramatically change our politics in the short term: winning Senate elections. Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans gave America this radical Supreme Court through a corrupted confirmation process that blocked Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Court in 2016; abolished the filibuster for Supreme Court justices in 2017; confirmed Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 even after the National Council of Churches opposed his nomination; and rammed through the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett eight days before election day in 2020 after fifty million people had already voted. Of course, McConnell and his Republican caucus also stayed silent while Trump’s “big lie” that the election was stolen poisoned the nation and triggered the attack on the Capitol, and then refused to convict Trump even after he was impeached for inciting the January 6 insurrection.
Off year elections are notoriously difficult for the party in power; with inflation surging and Biden’s approval rating tanking, the political environment has rightly been described as “brutal” for the Democrats. But the Senate map is favorable: the Republicans are defending twenty seats, the Democrats only fourteen; five Republicans retirements have produced open seat opportunities for Democrats in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and North Carolina, where strong Democratic candidates will be running against extreme Republican nominees. Several Republican incumbents—Ron Johnson, Marco Rubio, and Chuck Grassley—are potentially beatable. Democrats need to channel their despair and anger into focused political action. A Senate with 54-56 Democrats, instead of 50, would make it possible to change the filibuster rules, continue confirming progressive judges, and put major pieces of the Democratic agenda before the country in advance of the 2024 presidential election.
Seeking to regain the Republican Senate majority, McConnell has supported the infrastructure legislation, aid to Ukraine, and most recently, the bipartisan legislation which represents the first modest Congressional action to reduce gun violence. Democrats and independents should not be deluded by his effort to avoid the Senate Republicans being tagged as complete obstructionists. It is time to hold McConnell and the Senate Republicans accountable: for the radical Supreme Court they have given us; for their failure to protect America from Trump’s assault on our democracy and his unhinged leadership during the pandemic; and for constantly blocking action to address our most urgent problems. We have been living, and dying, in McConnell’s America far too long; the November elections are our chance to end his destructive reign.
With our democracy hanging by a fraying thread, each of us needs to assess whether he/she has done enough to preserve it. The corporate community bears particular responsibility; with a few notable exceptions, business leaders have continually underestimated how dire the threat to democracy is or found justifications to continue their usual pattern of political contributions. This can no longer be the case. Corporate leaders need to include the interest of their stakeholders and their company and the type of environment — a vibrant democracy — that benefits both as they weigh how to approach political spending.
Ira Shapiro, a former Senate staffer and Clinton administration trade ambassador, is the author of three books about the Senate, most recently The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America. He can be followed on Twitter @shapiroglobal. His website is www.irashapiroauthor.com.
CPA is a non-profit, non-partisan organization created in November 2003 to bring transparency and accountability to political spending. To learn more about the Center for Political Accountability visit www.politicalaccountability.net.
With the Senate primary elections over, Iowans face the decision between Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley and Democrat Admiral Mike Franken. There will be time between now and November for Admiral Franken to try to convince Iowans that his record of military service would make him a valuable addition to the Senate. But even before that, the basic decision should be faced squarely: whether to give Sen. Grassley, who has already served 42 years in the Senate, another six-year term.
Grassley’s decision to run again at age 88 is not quite completely unprecedented, but it is highly unusual. Senators, of course, are not term limited, but Senate history shows a strong pattern. Howard Baker of Tennessee, the universally admired Republican leader, retired after three terms (18 years). Mike Mansfield of Montana, the universally admired Democratic leader, retired after four terms (24 years). For decades, many respected senators reached essentially the same conclusion. Those who retired after three terms included Republicans John Danforth, Alan Simpson, Trent Lott, Lamar Alexander, Nancy Kassebaum, William Cohen, and Olympia Snowe, and Democrats Bill Bradley, Howell Heflin, Abraham Ribicoff, David Pryor, and David Boren. Those who retired after four terms included Republicans Mike Enzi, Pat Roberts, and Don Nickles, and Democrats Sam Nunn, Joseph Lieberman, Dale Bumpers, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Barbara Boxer, Alan Cranston, and Kent Conrad.
Some senators served longer; even as the Senate became increasingly dysfunctional, many senators stayed for five terms (30 years). But the retirement decisions of those senators also fall into a pattern. As they approached the thirty-year mark, usually in their late 70s or age 80, they realized that it was time to leave, rather than commit to a year of campaigning and then six more years in the Senate. Iowa’s Tom Harkin made that choice at age 75. Others in this category include Republicans John Warner, Mark Hatfield, and Jesse Helms, and Democrats Carl Levin, Barbara Mikulski, Jeff Bingaman, and Patrick Leahy (who is retiring at 80, after seven terms.). These men and women understood that part of their responsibility, to their states and the nation, was to know when to step aside and let the torch of leadership pass to a younger person.
Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but generally they end badly. Carl Hayden, at 91, mistook a phone booth for an elevator, walked in, and said: “Down.” Robert Byrd, one of the greatest senators, who was a powerful opponent of the Iraq War at the age of 85, became a shadow of himself before dying in office at 92. Strom Thurmond, who died in office at 100, was a joke and an embarrassment; virtually unable to speak or hear, he had to be carried into committee meetings. More recently, Dianne Feinstein chose to run at age 85, won another term, and tarnished her storied career; her decision to run is regarded by her friends and admirers as a tragic mistake.
Fully aware of these examples, good and bad, Sen. Grassley decided that seven terms are not enough for him. He apparently cannot conceive of life without being in the Senate, or regards himself as indispensable, or both, but his decision clearly shows egregiously bad judgment, which is not going to improve between ages 89 and 95.
It is possible that, deep down, Sen. Grassley knows what he should have done, but was prevailed upon to run one more time by Republican leader Mitch McConnell. Grassley has sacrificed his independent judgment before at McConnell’s request. In July 2020, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in ill-health, Grassley said that if he were still chairing the Judiciary Committee, he would not take up a nomination to the Supreme Court just weeks before a presidential election. But after Justice Ginsburg’s death, since he was no longer chairman, Grassley cast a decisive vote in ramming through Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation eight days before Election Day. Despite his stature and experience, Grassley did something he knew to be wrong, which had profound consequences for the Senate, the Court, and the American people.
As a former Senate staffer and now a Senate historian, I’m one of many Democrats who has admired Sen. Grassley’s cantankerous independence over the years. But he has already had the extraordinary privilege of being a United States senator for forty-two years— more than five times longer than the eight years that any president is allowed to serve. Retiring honorably after having served long and well, as Sen. Harkin or former Republican Gov. Bob Ray did, should have been an easy call for Grassley. The fact that he couldn’t do it calls to mind one of the most familiar cries in politics: “Time for a change.”
Ira Shapiro, a former Senate staffer and Clinton administration official, is the author of three books about the Senate. His new book is “The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America.” His website is www.irashapiroauthor.com.
Fewer presidencies have resulted in more controversy than that of Donald Trump. From firing the FBI director and mischaracterizing the Mueller Report, to seating three Supreme Court justices and surviving two impeachments, Trump survived scandal after scandal.
How a president can withstand such devastating derelictions of duty is the subject of Ira Shapiro’s new book, The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America, where Shapiro makes the case that McConnell aided and abetted the Trump presidency to the bitter end.
Shapiro is uniquely positioned to write about McConnell’s leadership after spending more than a decade working in senior positions in the U.S. Senate as well as serving as Bill Clinton’s chief trade negotiator with Canada and Japan. Overall, Shapiro spent 45 years in Washington focusing on international trade and national politics.
While Shapiro covers the Senate’s response to the Trump administration in chronological order, somehow his book reads as a horror story that continues devolving until the insurrectionist denouement.
Shapiro has written two other books about the Senate, but in an interview with The Blueprint, he explained what sets The Betrayal apart from the others.
The idea for The Betrayal came months before the Jan. 6 insurrection, during the summer of 2020. During this time, Shapiro was calling for governors to take the lead in forcing Trump to resign, referring to the former Trump Steaks creator as “an unhinged president during a pandemic,” who was spewing misinformation, rallying Republican governors against Blue State governors, and ignoring the experts on COVID-19.
But for Shapiro, there was something even more worrisome at hand: Trump was signalling he wasn’t going to respect the results of the election.
“I think the Trump presidency was a catastrophe for the country [but] the catastrophic failure of government was the Senate,” Shapiro said. “They’re the ones who were supposed to check the president.”
While the Senate’s purpose has always been to keep checks and balances on the presidency, McConnell has weaponized the institution to protect the Republican party and its president at all costs.
“Most senators show a willingness to balance their commitment to the party with their own independent judgment,” Shapiro noted, adding their six-year terms provide senators with more independence than members of Congress who serve for two years at a time.
Shapiro’s book begins with three distinct quotes, but for this reviewer, the most powerful of all came from George Ball in 1964: “He who rides the tiger cannot choose where he dismounts.”
The Betrayal captures the highs and lows of McConnell’s career, with Shapiro recognizing that few political figures have had such a significant impact on American politics as the current Senate Minority Leader.
But that legacy, Shapiro explains, is mired by a dereliction of duty and an underestimation of Trump’s depravity. Calling McConnell “an exceptionally skillful politician [and] a master strategist,” he says McConnell has been undeniably effective at accomplishing his political goals. Unfortunately, Shapiro added, those accomplishments have been to his personal benefit and Republican power, “at a great cost to the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the United States as a nation.”
While Shapiro condemns the actions of the insurrectionists on Jan. 6, he recognizes that many of them believed they were doing something patriotic simply because their president asked them to.
The Betrayal concludes in the aftermath of Jan. 6, with McConnell speaking out vehemently against Trump in public but voting to acquit the president when push comes to shove. For Shapiro, the insurrection only strengthened his argument, noting that Republican senators couldn’t bring themselves to convict Trump even after their lives were put in danger by the domestic terrorists incited by their president.
Ending the filibuster and a return to governing with conscience
Over the years, the filibuster has become one of McConnell’s greatest political weapons. By requiring 60 votes to end debate, McConnell has prevented legislation on voting rights, pandemic supports, and even a Supreme Court Justice nominee’s confirmation in 2016.
Now, Shapiro says, is the time to get rid of the filibuster, saying the tool has become “corrupted over time.”
“I grew up at a time in the Senate working there when filibusters, we like to say, were real but rare,” he said.
While many pundits fear that ending the filibuster could backfire on Democrats if Trump wins a second term in 2024, Shapiro believes the only way to stop them is “with some people of conscience.”
“If you have an institution that’s blocking government action, year after year, that’s not a workable institution,” he explained.
In his book, Shapiro referred to Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation—which took place after millions of Americans had already voted in the 2020 Presidential election—as the Banana Republic Confirmation.
“I found it to be a terrible act and shockingly disconnected from anything resembling our democracy,” Shapiro told me. While he explained that McConnell’s blocking of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court was an act of unprecedented hardball, arguably, at least the voters had some say in deciding the next justice. “In this case, [McConnell] took that away from the voters, ramming through a confirmation eight days before election day, after 50 million people had already voted,” he said.
Shapiro said that after finishing his second book on the Senate in 2018, he felt a moderate and cautious sense of optimism that Congress could rise to the challenges posed by Trump. Led by the political independence of Republicans like Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, and the late John McCain, Shapiro believed there was a core group of Republicans—that occasionally included Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski—who would be enough to keep Trump in check. That optimism, while admittedly unjustified, served as the blueprint for The Betrayal.
“One thing I learned was that I had an idealized view of the Senate and Senators,” Shapiro told me. “Based on my experience and what I had seen, heard, and learned, I would have thought if things got bad enough, they would step up. And that was wrong.”
Ultimately, Shapiro says he wrote The Betrayal in an effort to play some small part in the fight for democracy. In a plea to the GOP, Shapiro urged Republicans to strive to be their best selves rather than do things they consciously know are both wrong and anti-democratic.
Will they heed Shapiro’s call? Only time will tell.