Mitch McConnell, the ‘Grim Reaper’ of the US Senate

WASHINGTON: Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the US Senate, takes pride in calling himself the “Grim Reaper,” doling out death to the hopes of Democratic lawmakers.

The wily six-term senator from Kentucky now holds the fate of a Republican in his hands — that of President Donald Trump, no less.

Although Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts will preside over Trump´s impeachment trial in the Senate, it will be the 77-year-old Majority Leader who actually calls the shots.

Trump, a brash political neophyte, and McConnell, who was first elected to the Senate in 1984, come from vastly different backgrounds and have not always been on the same page.

While Trump is a fast-talking New Yorker born of privilege, the low-key McConnell suffered from polio as a child, chooses his words carefully and delivers them in the slow, southern drawl of his native Alabama.

Where the pair find common cause is on advancing a conservative agenda, notably by packing the courts with judges who share their philosophy.

Appointing scores of conservative judges is “the most long-lasting contribution that Donald Trump and Senate Republicans have made for the country,” McConnell told Fox News recently.

It was a court appointment that perhaps more than anything else earned McConnell his reputation as a hardnosed political operator and a master of the Senate chess game.

Following the February 2016 death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, McConnell blocked the appointment of Scalia´s successor by then-President Barack Obama on the grounds it was an election year.