Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is hurt by the social media backlash he received this week after he implied that Black voters are not Americans.
Asked by a reporter on Wednesday about concerns among voters of color as he rallied Republicans to defeat the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act in the Senate McConnell said: “Well, the concern is misplaced. Because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.”
At an infrastructure event in Kentucky Friday, McConnell told reporters that he “misspoke” and that he inadvertently left out the word “all” before “Americans” in his statement.
He also defended himself against the “outrageous mischaracterization” of his record on racial issues, saying he witnessed Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have A Dream’ speech and watched President Lyndon Johnson sign the Voting Rights Act into law at the Capitol. Additionally, McConnell says he hires African-Americans for senior roles in his office and touted his recruitment of Daniel Cameron, a black man, to run for Kentucky Attorney General.
“I’ve never been accused of this kind of thing before. It’s hurtful,” he said.
The Senate voted against a one-time change to the chamber’s filibuster rules late Wednesday night to block the passage of voting rights.
All 50 Senate Republicans and two Democrats, Sen. Joe Manchin (W. Va.) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), voted against a proposal brought by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to require Republicans to maintain a talking filibuster in order to block the passage of the voting rights bill.
