In February 2021, Sen. Mitch McConnell finally repudiated Donald Trump, calling the twice-impeached president “practically and morally responsible” for the Capitol attack.

“The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president,” McConnell said. “The leader of the free world cannot spend weeks thundering that shadowy forces are stealing our country and then feign surprise when people believe him and do reckless things.”

Yet, that same month, McConnell says he’d “absolutely” support Trump if he is the GOP candidate in the 2024 presidential contest.

How does McConnell square those two seemingly contradictory comments? That’s what Axios’ Jonathan Swan, one of the most skilled interviewers in the Washington press corps, asked McConnell on Thursday.

(You can watch the full interview above. The section on Trump is highlighted in the Tweet below.)

McConnell said he’s not in control of who his party nominates and he feels an obligation to support the will of GOP voters.

“As a Republican leader of the Senate, it should not be a front-page headline that I will support the Republican nominee for president,” McConnell said.

Swan pushed back, citing Rep. Liz Cheney’s vehement rejection of Trump as an example of a Republican who refuses to prioritize party loyalty above all else.

McConnell grew visibly impatient.

In The Washington Post, staff writer Aaron Blake offered the following perspective:

[McConnell is] rendering himself a rank partisan, by choice. He’s saying, yes, maybe Trump provoked an attack on the Capitol and abdicated his responsibility to the country, but that’s nothing compared with being a Democrat. In other words, he’d rather have a president who incited violence — whether willingly or negligently — against his own government, reveled in that violence and tried to overturn democracy than a president who has competing policy views.

Swan and McConnell discussed a number of additional topics – including why it’s in America’s best interest to support Ukraine, why he tolerates GOP Senate candidates with a history of domestic abuse (Herschel Walker in Georgia and Eric Greitens in Missouri) and whether Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from cases involving the 2020 election and its chaotic aftermath (McConnell doesn’t think so).

McConnell also said one of his top priorities is pressuring President Joe Biden to expand domestic energy production.

But the Kentuckian’s most revealing comment might have come at the end of his remarks about Trump. Swan, refusing to walk away from McConnell’s contradictory attitudes about the former president, began a question by saying “I’m just trying to understand. Is there any threshold for you—”

McConnell cut him off.

“You know, I say many things I’m sure people don’t understand,” he said.