09.17.20

McConnell on The Guy Benson Show

WASHINGTON, D.C. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) joined Guy Benson this afternoon to discuss a variety of topics. See below for highlights or click here to listen to the full interview.

On Speaker Pelosi Holding Up Relief for Americans:

“It’s not difficult to figure out who’s responsible for it. The Speaker has said ‘give me $2.2 trillion dollars and then we’ll talk.’ Every single thing in the package that we voted for on this side of the Capitol, in the Senate last week, is something Democrats are for. But they’re saying if you don’t give us everything we want, we won’t give you anything, even things we’re for.

“Like in the half a trillion dollar package, roughly, that we put on the floor last week. It focused on kids in school, jobs, healthcare, and very importantly — and it costs nothing — liability protections to keeps hospitals, doctors, nurses, colleges, universities and businesses from being sued over how they handle the coronavirus. Unless you could show gross negligence or intentional misbehavior, you shouldn’t be subject to an avalanche of lawsuits as we’re struggling to get past the pandemic.

“They don’t want to get it resolved here before the election because they believe that failure to pass a fourth rescue package will benefit them and hurt the president and Republicans. I think the American people are sick of it.”

On Senate Democrats’ Filibuster Hypocrisy:

“Hypocrisy is not unheard of in the annals of Washington politics, but this is one of the most conspicuous examples of it. They’re going to turn the Senate into the House so things can be done quickly with simple majorities.

“And here’s what they’re going to do after they change the filibuster: They’re going to admit the District [of Columbia] as a state. They’re going to admit Puerto Rico as a state. That’s four new Democratic Senators in perpetuity. And once they get a hammerlock on the Senate, they’re going to then pack the Supreme Court, the Circuit Courts, and the District Courts by creating new vacancies, filling them with judicial activists. Then they’ll do what they always do: Turn to the economy and overtax and overregulate. And even if the public reacts two years later, a lot of damage will be done.

“If I’m the Majority Leader we’re not going to have two new states, we’re not going to pack the courts, and we’re going to do everything we can to prevent them from completely reversing the tax reform act of 2017.”


On Election Security:

“The Democrats are doing the Chinese and the Russians’ work for them by sowing doubts about our democracy, by trying to divide us against ourselves.

“Here are the facts, Guy: Since 2016 — which did, as Mark Warner the Ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee admitted, catch us flat-footed — a lot of work has been done over the last four years. A huge number of dedicated experts have worked hard to improve our defenses and regain the country’s trust. We’ve had 53 election security briefings to Congress since 2018. The 2018 election, by the way, was quite smooth. There were a few elections in 2019; they were as well. We’ve already set aside more than a billion dollars in various bills over the last few years. All of that money has not yet been spent by the states, so there’s a reserve there in case they need more money.

“This is a solution in search of a problem. We are ready for the 2020 election and the Trump Administration by any objective standard has done a terrific job getting us in a totally different place from where the previous administration had us in 2016. So I’ve been pushing back against these scare tactics, I think they’re all related to trying to win the election. They’re sowing seeds of doubt which is exactly what the Russians and the Chinese like to hear.”