While the incessant obstruction of President Donald Trump's policy agenda is predictable and unsurprising, what has been shocking to some has been the equally fervent opposition to nearly every Trump move by a handful of Republicans, chief among them the former Senate GOP leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

On Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance accused his former Senate colleague McConnell of engaging in "political pettiness" to an extreme degree after the elderly senator voted against one of Trump's senior Pentagon appointees, the Daily Mail reported.

In addition to being the lone Republican to vote against the nomination of Elbridge Colby as Trump's choice to be the next Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, even as a trio of Democrats voted to confirm him, the Kentucky senator also issued a searing statement that outlined his apparent complete opposition to Colby's worldview and geostrategies.

McConnell really doesn't like Trump's nominee

On President Trump's first day in office, he formally nominated Colby to be the next Pentagon policy chief, and more than two months later, Colby's nomination was finally confirmed with a 54-45 vote in the Senate -- a tally that included three Democrats voting in favor of the nominee and one Republican, Sen. McConnell, voting against him.

McConnell's "No" vote did not come as a complete surprise, given the harsh statement he released to explain why he opposed the nominee.

"Elbridge Colby’s long public record suggests a willingness to discount the complexity of the challenges facing America, the critical value of our allies and partners, and the urgent need to invest in hard power to preserve American primacy," McConnell opined. "The prioritization that Mr. Colby argues is fresh, new, and urgently needed is, in fact, 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," he continued. "It is geostrategic self-harm that emboldens our adversaries and drives wedges between America and our allies for them to exploit."

Sen. McConnell was far from finished, however, and stated further of President Trump's nominee, "Mr. Colby’s confirmation leaves open the door for the less-polished standard-bearers of restraint and retrenchment at the Pentagon to do irreparable damage to the system of alliances and partnerships which serve as force multipliers to U.S. leadership. It encourages isolationist perversions of peace through strength to continue apace at the highest levels of Administration policymaking."

"As I have expressed repeatedly, I remain committed to supporting national security nominees whose records and views make them assets, not liabilities, in the restoration of U.S. hard power," the senator continued before he ultimately concluded, "Make no mistake: America will not be made great again by those who are content to manage our decline."

Never seen such "political pettiness" as from McConnell

The Daily Mail reported that Nate Morris, a successful Kentucky entrepreneur whom some in President Trump's circle have encouraged to run for Sen. McConnell's seat, responded to the senator's statement against Colby's nomination with a sharp retort of his own.

"Elbridge Colby is one of the brightest foreign policy minds in the GOP and it's pathetic watching Mitch McConnell continue to stand with Dems to sabotage President Trump," Morris wrote. "This is why whoever replaces Mitch for Senate needs to represent a clean break from him -- Time for a change!"

That post by Morris was later shared by VP Vance, who included some biting words of his own against his former colleague and leader when he previously served as a senator from Ohio.

"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 said.

The vice president was far from alone in calling out McConnell's staunch opposition to Colby, the Daily Mail observed, and it must be noted that McConnell's apparent chief objection is Colby's plans to shift attention away from Ukraine and the Middle East to focus instead on the nation that arguably constitutes America's greatest threat, the communist regime in China.