As The Washington Post and several other news outlets have reported, McConnell has repeatedly - and privately - derided Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6 assault, denouncing him for his role in fomenting the attack. Yet after the House impeached Trump on a charge of "incitement of insurrection" and a Senate trial in February 2021, McConnell made no effort to rally Republicans to convict Trump and voted to acquit the former president.

At the time McConnell made the comments, Trump and his allies were working to overturn the results of the election, falsely claiming that the election had been fraudulent in key states including Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia. McConnell reportedly said - before the Georgia runoff races - that Trump is "stupid" and "ill-tempered." Trump, he added, "can't even figure out where his own best interests lie."

"For a narcissist like him ... that's been really hard to take," McConnell said. "And so his behavior since the election has been even worse, by far, than it was before, because he has no filter now at all."

According to the book, some of McConnell's staffers barricaded themselves in their office as rioters stormed the building on Jan. 6. After the attack, McConnell sobbed softly as he spoke to his office staff, thanking them for their actions that day.

"You are my family, and I hate the fact that you had to go through this," he told them, Tackett writes.

But I shed no tears for McConnell protecting Trump and leaving this nation where we are today when all he had to do was release his caucus to vote their conscious during Trump's 2nd impeachment trial.