Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, Reuters White House correspondent Jeff Mason, USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page and Fox News senior political analyst Juan Williams discuss former President Trump's unifying effort.

There is already an ocean of commentary on the attempted assassination of former President Trump, and I will not add to it here, except to write: If you are not both grateful that he was spared and also mourning for the dead and wounded, see a mental health professional as you are seriously unbalanced.

Given that surfeit of commentary on President Trump’s escape from murder, I want to focus on a much less covered topic from last week.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is nearing the end of his record-setting run as leader of a party in the United States Senate. McConnell was first elected by Kentucky voters in 1984, and McConnell was elected by his colleagues in the Senate Republican Conference to be their leader in 2007. When McConnell voluntarily yields that job in the next Congress, he will have spent a record 18 years as leader of a party in the Senate.

Last week McConnell laid out the outline of his last mission as Leader. McConnell may run for re-election in 2026 and if he does he is certain of victory. Whether he does or not, however, his views will not change on the need for the United States to lead the West and to adhere to the national security policy of the first of the seven presidents he has served alongside, Ronald Reagan. It is a view shared by the majority of Republicans according to the annual summer survey on national security issues conducted by the Ronald Reagan Foundation.

McConnell used last week’s NATO summit as the backdrop to a speech he delivered at the Washington D.C. headquarters of The Reagan Institute, a piece of the Reagan Foundation’s overall structure. McConnell’s remarks are a complete defense of Reagan’s "peace through strength" foreign policy and a powerful reminder to the GOP’s delegates to the national convention now gathered in Milwaukee about what the last century’s most popular Republican president laid down as the central mission of the United States.

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"The West must ensure that our promises and our threats are backed by hard power," McConnell stated. "And," he added in the direct language that is supported by a majority of Republicans and American generally, "nowhere are the West’s interests and the credibility of its commitments more plainly and immediately at stake than on the front lines of Ukraine."

Mitch McConnell doesn’t care whom he offends —he doesn’t need any more Christmas cards and he doesn’t much care what online masters of their own universes exclaim about him. He never has, whether the snarks are........

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