Now to a CNN exclusive.
The Senate GOP leader, Mitch McConnell,
he says that he's not confident
Republicans will take back
the Senate majority in 2024.
Leader McConnell telling CNN's moderates
who in an exclusive candid
phone interview, quote You'll love this.
We do have the possibility
of screwing this up
and that gets back
to candidate recruitment.
I think that we lost Georgia,
Arizona and New Hampshire
because we didn't
have competitive candidates
that would beat last year.
He means
this despite an obvious advantage
in the upcoming election.
Democrats are defending a whopping
23 seats, compared to only 11
Republican held seats.
Right here
in studio with me as our chief
congressional correspondent, Manu Raju.
His candor is borne of experience.
He thought in the last couple of cycles
he would get
and then pad a Republican majority.
And yet he is in the minority.
Let's just put the map up
on the screen here.
If you look at this, number one,
the advantage for
the Republicans
is all 11 of those red states
with Republican incumbents
are Republican states
and presidential elections.
Is Florida
potentially a swing state maybe.
But you go through all of those states
and you have Republican incumbents in
what should be safe or safe ish seats.
You look at the map here.
McConnell in the interview
with you
focuses on Montana
West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania,
where you have Democratic incumbents
right now in what, in a presidential year
should be tough states, right?
Yeah.
And it's interesting to see him
talk about that.
Because he's seeing this
despite all those states
that we just saw.
He's really
looking at a very small map
to take back
the majority in West Virginia.
Of course, Joe Manchin,
we don't know if he's going to run again.
Be very happy about getting Jim
just as the governor there to run there.
Also in Ohio,
he says Sherrod
Brown is the incumbent
Democratic senator.
They have several candidates
they are happy about in Montana.
There's hope that they could get
this businessman
named Tim Sheehy to run there.
Jon Tester is the incumbent member.
And they are really,
really pining to get Dave
McCormick, who ran and fell short
in the Pennsylvania Senate race
in the last primary.
Now they want him to run here.
But, John, in each of those states,
there are very complicated
primaries that could emerge
and could complicate their efforts
to get back the majority.
So McConnell
made very clear
that unlike the last cycle
where the Republican leaders,
for the most part,
stepped away, from those primaries,
they pledged to engage, spend money
and resources
in those races
to ensure that they believe
they can get the most electable candidate
route out the weaker ones.
But of course, that's easier
said than done.
And so let's continue there.
So another reason
McConnell thinks Montana, West
Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
good for Republicans,
even if Trump is the nominee,
because those are strong states
for Trump.
He lost Pennsylvania last time,
but he has got a ton of votes.
It was a very close state there.
Then you look at these other ones.
You look at Wisconsin,
you look at Nevada,
you look at Arizona,
where you have Democratic incumbents in
what should be a battleground states.
Why not more confident there?
Yeah, he knew.
I asked him specifically about this.
What about those other states?
He left those out.
Probably because the down
ticket, in fact,
he didn't say that
explicitly that the down
ticket, in fact,
could potentially hurt
Wisconsin, could help
but hurt them in Arizona.
Michigan,
he barely even mentioned in the interview
in Arizona.
Is such a complicated state for them
because of the potential of
Kirsten cynical running
as a third party candidate,
also the Democratic candidate
and some very far right candidates,
including Kerry Lake, Blake Masters,
considering a run in Arizona.
McCollum made clear to me, John,
that they planned to wait
almost certainly
until after the primary to decide
whether to spend
any money
there at all,
which explains
the underlying problem here for them,
how the primaries could
produce candidates
who could be unelectable
in a general election,
which is why he's hedging his bets
at this point.
One of the things he said to you is
we don't have an ideological litmus
test will be involved
in every general election
where we have a legitimate
shot of winning.
The question is in the primaries, though,
does he expect to have fights with Trump
of a Republican nominee?
Are they going to spend
to go against Trump?
It's really an interesting question.
What will Trump do?
We don't really have a sense
if he'll be as aggressive
as he was last time
because a lot of this blew up
back in his face in the last cycle.
What will he do now?
Steve Daines, the NRC chairman,
the Senate GOP campaign
has been working
behind the scenes, talking
to Trump, endorsed Trump
for his presidential run.
Perhaps that could help things
going forward, but it's still uncertain.
Fascinating interview.
And interesting
is this again, his lack of confidence
born of history.
Manu, everybody,
I urge you to go to CNN Politics.
I can't read the entire interview.
It's fascinating as.