Vice President JD Vance didn’t hold back Tuesday, torching Sen. Mitch McConnell for voting against Elbridge Colby’s nomination to a top Pentagon post and accusing the outgoing Senate minority leader of indulging in “one of the great acts of political pettiness” of his long career.

Colby, a staunch America First voice and former Trump-era deputy assistant secretary of defense, was nominated by President Trump to serve as Under Secretary of Policy at the Department of Defense. His nomination drew widespread support from the MAGA base — and near-unanimous Republican support in the Senate.

All except for one: Mitch McConnell.

“Mitch’s vote today — like so much of the last few years of his career — is one of the great acts of political pettiness I’ve ever seen,” Vance declared, calling out what many viewed as a final swipe from the embattled Kentucky senator, who is not seeking re-election in 2026.

McConnell released a lengthy explanation for his opposition, accusing Colby of wanting to “abandon” America’s allies in Europe and the Middle East in favor of prioritizing the Indo-Pacific. He claimed Colby’s strategy, which centers on deterring Chinese aggression while reducing overstretch abroad, mirrors a “return to an Obama-era conception of a la carte geostrategy.”

“Abandoning Ukraine and Europe and downplaying the Middle East to prioritize the Indo-Pacific is not a clever geopolitical chess move,” McConnell argued. “It is geostrategic self-harm that emboldens our adversaries and drives wedges between America and our allies for them to exploit.”

But Vance, along with a broad swath of America First leaders, sees it differently. Colby’s appointment, they argue, is long overdue — and his clarity of purpose is exactly what the Defense Department needs after years of bloated bureaucracy, globalist distraction, and mission creep.

“Mitch’s take is pure projection,” a senior administration official said privately. “He’s spent decades cheerleading forever wars and rubber-stamping Pentagon waste. Bridge [Colby] threatens that model — that’s what this is really about.”

Colby, author of The Strategy of Denial, has been outspoken in his belief that America must prioritize China as its top threat, rather than diluting resources across countless international conflicts. He’s also a vocal critic of the DC foreign policy establishment — something that’s earned him both allies and enemies in town.

In fact, McConnell’s solo “no” vote made him the only Republican in the chamber to oppose Colby’s confirmation — a glaring sign of how far he has drifted from the party’s current trajectory.

As Breitbart News previously reported, Colby has been under heavy fire from globalist circles, with think tank hawks and defense contractors warning that his approach would curb their influence and cash flow. But those attacks have only galvanized support from America First leaders.

“The DC swamp fears Bridge because they know he’s 100% loyal to my father’s America First foreign policy agenda at the Defense Department,” Donald Trump Jr. told Breitbart ahead of the vote. “The entire MAGA movement will be watching this vote very closely.”

In the end, the vote was decisive: Colby was confirmed by a wide margin, thanks to near-unanimous Republican backing and a handful of Democrats crossing the aisle.

Still, McConnell’s grandstanding left a sour taste among many in the party. The optics were unmistakable — a fading party elder standing alone in a gesture that smacked more of personal grievance than principle.

Even former Trump officials joined the chorus, pointing to McConnell’s long pattern of undermining America First policies and personnel.

“He never supported Trump’s foreign policy,” one source said. “He tolerated it when it benefited him politically, but he was always going to sabotage it on his way out.”

With Colby now confirmed and Vice President Vance continuing to play hardball, the message is clear: the old guard is on its way out, and the America First movement is steering the future of Republican foreign policy.

And Mitch McConnell, once the most powerful Republican in Washington, is fast becoming a cautionary tale.