Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell invoked his wife, former Trump Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, when asked if he was “comfortable” with Donald Trump repeatedly saying immigrants in the United States are “poisoning the blood of our country,” remarks that have been said to “closely reflect those of Adolf Hitler as the German leader argued his case for Nazism.”
“Are you comfortable with your party’s leading presidential candidate referring to legal immigrants as people who are poisoning the blood of our country?” CNN’s Manu Raju asked the GOP Minority Leader Tuesday afternoon (video below).
McConnell never answered the question directly, instead offering as his reply: “Well, it strikes me that didn’t bother him when he appointed Elaine Chao Secretary of Transportation.”
Politico notes that the Minority Leader “has basically no relationship with Trump since the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; they haven’t spoken since December 2020. The former president has spent years now calling for McConnell to be replaced as Senate GOP leader.”
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Citing the violence on January 6, 2021, Secretary Chao resigned from Trump’s Cabinet the following day, effective four days later. Since then, Trump has repeatedly made racist slurs about his former cabinet secretary, calling her McConnell’s “China-loving wife, Coco Chow.”
“On at least a half a dozen occasions,” Politico had reported in January, “Trump has taken to his social media platform, Truth Social, to criticize McConnell’s leadership, and to suggest, among other things, that he is conflicted because of his wife’s connection to China. Last fall, in a message widely viewed by Republicans and Democrats as a threat, he said that McConnell ‘has a DEATH WISH.'”
Secretary Chao was born in Taiwan and immigrated to the United States when she was eight.
Some saw Tuesday’s remarks by McConnell as a “wry dig.” Politico reported, McConnell “dings” Trump. Others were less accommodating.
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“As always, McConnell uses his wife’s race to justify Trump’s racism. It’s the only play he has and he’s used it for years,” remarked Alliance for Justice’s Zack Ford.
Watch McConnell’s remarks below or at this link.