The news that Mitch McConnell will step down as GOP senate leader later this year has led many to argue that he was fundamentally a foe of Donald Trump who is no longer welcome in the party of MAGA. But the story is more complicated than that: In crucial ways, McConnell’s own career trajectory helped bring about the descent of our politics into its current disastrous mess. We chatted with Congressional scholar Norman Ornstein, who was among the first to identify McConnell as key to the GOP slide into dysfunction and extremism. He helped us assess McConnell’s real legacy.

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