I know this may be hard to believe, but this man was (still is?) at the nuclear core of US power.

Notice the huge number of bodyguards. That’s a sign of his social statut.

This guy is like the final boss at the end of Metal Gear Solid or the TV show Lost.

McConnell is the longest serving leader in the history of the US Senate. He was instrumental in killing President Obama’s climate initiatives. Mitch McConnell went on the floor of the US Senate and said he would oppose ANY measure to fight climate change. He said climate change is utter BULLSHIT

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mitch-mcconnell-climate-change_n_5694575

He regularly attended private summits with billionaires including David Koch, Charles Koch, Rupert Murdoch, Sheldon Adelson, The Walton Family. He went to the most beautiful and expensive luxury resorts in North America for decades, partying with billionaires.

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-behind-koch-brothers-secret-billionaire-summit/

McConnell was not the most charismatic. He was not the most popular. He was not a veteran.

But he had a secret weapon. His fantastic ability to raise money. He practically invented the business. In fact, he met his own wife Elaine Chao while raising money from wealthy Chinese-Americans.

Mitch personally controlled a fund called the Senate Leadership Fund. This is a financial war chest helping US Republicans get elected by creating TV ads against democrats.

Whoever controls the Senate Leadership Fund controls the Republican Senators. McConnell built this fund because of his billionaire network. Most Republican Senators feared him and obeyed him, even when they hated him. Those who crossed McConnell were denied access to money from the Senate Leadership Fund. That was political suicide in competitive races.

In fact, according to this book, it was Mitch McConnel’s personal team that worked behind the scenes to achieve Citizens United, a Supreme Court decision that allowed unlimited money in politics.

We know have evidence that Senator McConnell was the top ally of tobacco companies

An NPR review of McConnell’s relationship with the tobacco industry over the decades has found that McConnell repeatedly cast doubt on the health consequences of smoking, repeated industry talking points word-for-word, attacked federal regulators at the industry’s request and opposed bipartisan tobacco regulations going back decades.

The industry, in turn, has provided McConnell with millions of dollars in speaking fees, personal gifts, campaign contributions and charitable donations to the McConnell Center, which is home to his personal and professional archives.

To be sure, Kentucky’s culture and economy have been intertwined with tobacco growing for decades. McConnell has argued that his support for the industry is because it employs tens of thousands of farmers in the state. “Farming tobacco put shoes on kids’ feet,” McConnell said in May. “It put dinner on the table.” In the 1990s, tobacco contributed more than $2 billion annually to Kentucky’s economy, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal at the time.

But the importance of tobacco to Kentucky can sometimes be overstated. The Courier-Journal declared in 1998, “Despite Kentucky Lore, Tobacco Is Not King,” noting that tobacco was only 3% of the overall state economy.

Soon after McConnell won a U.S. Senate seat, he was invited to the Tobacco Institute’s boardroom to give a speech in January 1985.

The main lobbying organization for the tobacco industry at the time said it would also pay McConnell $2,000 for his time.

He continued to give paid speeches to the industry throughout the 1980s.

The documents also reveal that McConnell and his Senate office frequently accepted gifts from tobacco industry lobbyists, a practice which was also legal at the time.

The gifts included tickets to NFL and NBA games, a production of Dostoevsky’s Crime And Punishment, a Ringo Starr concert, “top-quality brandy,” and what McConnell called a “beautiful ham.”

McConnell often ended his thank you notes to tobacco lobbyists with an offer:

“Please feel free to call on me whenever I may be of assistance to you.”

On top of campaign contributions, the industry also made major donations for the McConnell Center based at the University of Louisville. The center offers scholarships to college students, hosts lectures and holds McConnell’s private archives.

One of the most striking episodes revealed in the tobacco industry documents came in October 1998, a midterm election year.

“[Senator mcconnell just called me requesting 200,000 dollars soft,” R.J. Reynolds lobbyist Tommy Payne emailed a colleague, referring to soft money contributions that were not limited by federal law.

Just a few months earlier, McConnell helped defeat major tobacco legislation championed by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. McConnell’s role in that debate led to intense scrutiny of his relationship to the industry.

The McCain bill would have ratified and strengthened the proposed settlement between the tobacco industry and attorneys general from most of the states. It would have also allowed FDA regulation of nicotine and penalized companies that failed to reduce teen smoking.

McConnell, who had repeatedly clashed with McCain over campaign finance legislation, helped lead the opposition.

“We know, of course, that only 2% of smokers are teenagers,” McConnell said. “We wish they would not engage in this habit, and we ought to do everything we can to deter that behavior. But this bill… is about big government and big spending and big taxes.”

(In fact, nearly 90% of all smokers begin before they turn 18 years old.)

Fifty-seven senators ended up voting for the bill — three short of breaking the filibuster.

“Senator Mitch McConnell stood up at a closed-door meeting of Republican senators to deliver good news,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “The tobacco industry would mount a television ad campaign to support those who voted to knock off the bill.”

“That to me is the most egregious incident that I have seen about the appearance of corruption since I have been a member of the United States Senate,” McCain later said of McConnell’s comments, which he witnessed.

When the Senate considered bills to ban in-flight smoking, McConnell stood in opposition, saying that “there is no solid, incontrovertible evidence” that secondhand smoke was a health hazard.

In 1993, he also opposed banning smoking in federal buildings, saying the government was singling out cigarette smoke among other “so-called carcinogens” in the workplace, such as “spray cleaners.” The records suggest his 1993 statement was actually entirely drafted by the Tobacco Institute

When new tobacco regulations were proposed in Congress in 1990, a Philip Morris lobbyist wrote that he had asked McConnell and another senator “to intervene” with the George H.W. Bush White House on behalf of the industry. “We were successful,” the lobbyist wrote.

When the National Commission on Drug-Free Schools criticized the tobacco and alcohol industries in its 1990 report, McConnell wrote a member of the commission to complain. McConnell also argued that tobacco should not be included in anti-drug materials sent to schools.

When the FDA investigated the tobacco industry in the mid-1990s, McConnell requested that the General Accounting Office investigate the FDA itself.

A memo written by the R.J. Reynolds lobbying team described McConnell as “a constant thorn in Kessler’s side,” referring to then-FDA Commissioner David Kessler. The memo stated that the lobbyists should thank McConnell’s staff for fighting the FDA, noting that they had already “maxed out to his campaign” with contributions.

When the Department of Justice accused tobacco companies of decades-long fraud and racketeering for knowingly misleading the public, McConnell worked with the industry to try to discredit and defund the lawsuit.

https://www.npr.org/2019/06/17/730496066/tobaccos-special-friend-what-internal-documents-say-about-mitch-mcconnell

He fucked the people of Kentucky. He fucked them very hard. And they freaking loved it. They reelected him again, again and again.

When his wife, Elaine Chao, was Labor Secretary under President George W. Bush, she killed investigations into Kentucky mine owners accused of poisoning workers. In exchange, they wired money to her husband.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/20/how-mitch-mcconnell-became-trumps-enabler-in-chief

I mean he is the Speaker of the house.

Without the approval of the Speaker, it is almost impossible to get a vote on any topic no matter how popular with the rest of the lawmakers. He controls the order of business and calendar on the House floor, deciding which bills are brought up for debate or a vote.

The speaker is also the second in the presidential line of succession

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/aug/24/washington-post-reinstate-karen-attiah