Donald Trump says he doesn’t know if he could work with Mitch McConnell if re-elected

GREENVILLE, S.C. — Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he was uncertain if he could work with former ally turned political foe Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell if he were to be re-elected as president.

“He’ll probably end up endorsing me. I don’t know that I can work with him,” Trump said during a town hall with Fox News on Tuesday. “He gave away trillions of dollars that he didn’t have to, trillions of dollars. He made it very easy for the Democrats.”

The relationship between the two Republican leaders soured after McConnell denounced Trump’s role in the Capitol riot, calling it a “disgraceful dereliction of duty.” Trump has escalated attacks on McConnell since leaving office, and most recently helped tank the sweeping bipartisan border deal that McConnell supported.

McConnell has not endorsed Trump’s bid for re-election, even as many of his Senate colleagues have — though he said he would support whoever the GOP nominee is and has acknowledged that appears almost certain to be Trump.

NBC News has reached out to McConnell’s office for comment.

During the town hall, Trump also addressed the death of Alexei Navalny, comparing the Russian opposition leader’s death to his own legal woes and criminal indictments.

“It’s a horrible thing,” he said. “But it’s happening in our country too. We are turning into a communist country in many ways. And if you look at it, I’m the leading candidate. I got indicted — I never heard of being indicted.”

Trump also suggested Navalny would have been better off had he done his political advocacy from outside the danger of Russia.

“He was a very brave guy because he went back he could have stayed away, and frankly, probably would have been a lot better off staying away and talking from outside of the country as opposed to having to go back in because people thought that could happen and it did happen,” Trump said.

Navalny, a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, died suddenly on Friday in prison, the country’s prison service said. President Joe Biden blamed Putin for Navalny’s death and said Tuesday that the U.S. would impose additional sanctions on Russia in response.