Carl Bernstein sent social media users into overdrive after he slapped Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) with a taunting new nickname.
The famed Watergate reporter called McConnell “Midnight Mitch” during a panel discussion on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360°” on Monday. It centered on McConnell’s proposed compressed schedule for President Donald Trump’s imminent Senate impeachment trial over the Ukraine scandal that would see some testimony taking place in the early hours.
Said Bernstein:
The most important moment for the Republican Party since the censure of Joe McCarthy and the impeachment and resignation of Richard Nixon, in which Republicans became great heroes and patriots. Now, we’re looking at ‘Midnight Mitch’ and the so-called world’s greatest deliberative body really embracing a cover-up that is there for all to see. That’s what this is about. It’s about preventing information from becoming known and seen by the American public.
Bernstein noted how in the impeachments of former Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton there had been “no problem about knowing the truth of the facts.”
But in the impeachment trial of Trump, he said, “we still have a factual problem here because the president and those who work for him and Mitch McConnell have impeded the facts from the beginning.”
Check out the full clip here:
McConnell was previously nicknamed “Moscow Mitch” over his stymying of election security bills.
Bernstein’s new moniker for McConnell soon took on a life of its own on Twitter: