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Donald Trump slams Mitch McConnell and Republicans who voted in favour of infrastructure bill

Trump says Republicans who voted in favour of the bill should be ‘ashamed of themselves’

Sravasti Dasgupta
Monday 08 November 2021 13:49 GMT
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File: House of Representatives approved Biden administrations $1.9trn infrastructure bill
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Donald Trump has hit out at Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and other Republican lawmakers, saying they should be “ashamed of themselves” to support the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion (£1.4 trillion) infrastructure bill.

Mr Trump said in a statement on Sunday: “All Republicans who voted for Democrat longevity should be ashamed of themselves.”

The former president’s statement added that, of all the Republicans who voted in favour of the bill, Mr McConnell should be ashamed of himself “for granting a two month stay which allowed the Democrats time to work things out at out our Country’s and the Republican Party’s expense!”

Mr Trump also blamed those he terms as Republicans in Name Only (RINOs) for aiding the Democrats victory in passing a bill “where only 11 per cent of the money being wasted is going to real infrastructure.”

“How about all of those Republicans who voted thinking that helping the Democrats is such a wonderful thing to do, so politically correct. They just don’t get it,” he said.

Earlier in February, Mr Trump called Mr McConnell a “dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack” after Mr McConnell had held Mr Trump “morally responsible” for the 6 January Capitol Hill riots.

The House of Representatives had approved the infrastructure plan on Friday. Thirteen Republicans had joined the vast majority of House Democrats in approving the package.

The passage of the bill is the first major legislative victory for the Biden administration since the American Rescue Plan was signed to deal with the coronavirus pandemic around six months ago.

The Biden administration is expecting the bill to add over two million jobs per year over the coming decade and is said to be the largest such investment made by the federal government in decades.

It aims to fund improvements to roads, bridges, passenger rail, internet access, electricity grid, electric vehicles, airports and other infrastructure projects.

In October, the House of Representatives passed a bill to suspend the federal debt limit, which gave time to the Democrats to figure out how to get the bill passed amid a standoff with the Republicans.

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