Mitch McConnell manipulates Trump through 'intermediaries' unbeknownst to the former president, Mo Brooks says

• Mo Brooks says Mitch McConnell has Trump's ear but the former president doesn't know it.
• Trump is working to oust McConnell after their split over the 2020 election.

Mitch McConnell gets Donald Trump to do what the Senate minority leader wants through shady advisors, according to Rep. Mo Brooks, an Alabama Republican who just had a falling out with the former president.

Trump does not know that some of the people who have his ear are telegraphing messages from McConnell, Brooks told CBS 42 in Birmingham, Alabama on Thursday.

"Mitch McConnell is smart enough to use intermediaries so that the president doesn't necessarily know who these intermediaries are," Brooks said of the purported shadow campaign against him. He added that "the president's probably thinking that he's getting good advice from independent people. Unfortunately, that's not the way it works in the inner circle of Trumpworld."

Brooks on Thursday continued to cite McConnell as the reason Trump rescinded his endorsement of the Alabama Republican's Senate run a day earlier.

It's the second day in a row that Brooks has accused McConnell of manipulating the former president. Brook's accusations come even as Trump calls for McConnell to be ousted from Senate leadership because the Kentucky Republican didn't challenge the results of the 2020 election.

Brooks' assertion jibes with media reports about Trump increasingly second-guessing his endorsement operation because he's getting pulled in different directions by aides consulting on myriad midterm campaigns.

Trump publicly cut ties with Brooks on Wednesday, labeling the five-term lawmaker running to replace retiring Sen. Richard Shelby "woke" for daring to move on from the 2020 election.

Brooks countered by blaming the falling out on McConnell's meddling and Trump's inability to accept that reinstating him as president was beyond Brooks' control.

Brooks went after McConnell Monday in an ad that seemed custom-tailored for an audience of one at Mar-a-Lago.

"If elected to the Senate, I will not vote for Mitch McConnell for leader," Brooks pledged in the 90-second spot, sprinkling in the types of insults that appeal to the vengeance-seeking former president. "America can't afford a Senate leader who is a weak-kneed, debt junkie, open-border RINO Republican."

McConnell's office, the Brooks' campaign, and a Trump spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment about anyone being manipulated.