Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellSchumer gets his game change Progressives fear infrastructure climate plans don’t survive Senate Biden credits McConnell for urging Republicans to get vaccinated MORE (R-Ky.) Wednesday backed his stern warning that major companies like Major League Baseball, Delta and Coca-Cola should stay out of high-profile political fights after criticizing Georgia’s new election law.
“Let me say that yesterday I did not say it with much cunning. They certainly have a right to participate in politics. They are. My main complaint is that they didn’t read the damn bill, “McConnell said Wednesday at a news conference in Paducah, Kentucky.
The Republican Party leader softened his harsh talk earlier in the week, warning that companies would face “serious consequences” if they become “a vehicle for far-left mobility to hijack our country.”
He warned that “companies should not use economic blackmail to spread misinformation and push the bad ideas that citizens reject at the polls.”
“I found it completely discouraging to find a group of business CEOs who were in the middle of politics,” McConnell said Monday at a news conference in his home state. “My advice to America’s corporate CEOs is to stay out of politics. Don’t choose sides in these big fights. “
He doubled the warning to the American corporation on Tuesday when he said it was “pretty stupid” for major companies to “jump in the middle of a very controversial issue.”
He warned that companies risked losing business, noting that “Republicans also drink Coca-Cola, and we want and we like baseball.”
He said criticism of Georgia’s new election law “irritates many Republican hells.”
McConnell’s warning to companies to “stay out of politics” provoked a double take on the part of the media covering McConnell and campaign finance reform advocates because the Republican Party leader has raised millions of dollars from corporate PACs and donors during his long career.
And for years he has been leading the fight against restrictions on corporate political spending.
“It simply came to our notice then. Senator McConnell believes he can say totally contradictory things and get away with it. He has spent years defending and seeking funds from corporate executives, from corporate PACs. He led the challenge of banning soft money, which includes corporate money, ”said Fred Wertheimer, founder and president of Democracy 21, a nonprofit organization that seeks to limit the influence of money on politics.
Journalists pressured McConnell Tuesday in Kentucky about how his warning to corporate CEOs to stay out of politics was in response to the request for political contributions to corporate PACs.
He clarified on Tuesday that he had no problem with companies spending money on behalf of candidates and political parties, which immediately opened him up to charges of hypocrisy.
“I’m not talking about political contributions,” he said. “Most contribute to both parties, they have political action committees, it’s okay. It’s legal, it’s appropriate, I say.”
McConnell said he was talking about companies like Major League Baseball taking out business from Georgia to punish it for passing a new election law that Republicans say is no more restrictive than the laws of New York and Delaware, two trending states. democratic.
“I’m talking about taking a stand on a highly incendiary issue like this and punishing a community or a state, because you don’t like a particular law that was passed, I just think it’s stupid,” McConnell said Tuesday.
Democrats quickly rushed to the issue.
Democratic strategist Brad Bannon posted a doctoral photo of McConnell on Facebook with his plastering with corporate logos under the caption: “The #MoscowMitch message to the America corporation is shut up, but keep sending checks
McConnell on Wednesday backed his statement that CEOs should stay out of politics to explain that their main meat with Delta, Coca-Cola and other companies is that they injected themselves into the debate over Georgia law without having a sufficiently solid understanding of the subject. .
My complaint about the CEO [is] read the damn bill. They were intimidated into adopting an interpretation that Georgia Democrats gave to help pave the way, “he said Wednesday.
“And what did it cost them? It seems that it cost them the All-Star game and Major League Baseball made the same mistake, they didn’t read the bill “, he added.
McConnell has repeatedly pointed to a recent analysis in The Washington Post that he found President Biden
Joe Biden: A ship linked to Iranian espionage attacked in the sea Biden exceeds vaccine expectations: so far Jill Biden will visit Alabama with actress Jennifer Garner MORE He claimed “falsely” that Georgia law ended the vote hours earlier. The Post gave Biden “Four Pinocchio” because the new law only clarifies that counties must keep early voting booths open from at least 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and allows them to remain open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on early voting days.
A New York Times analysis, however, identified 16 provisions in the law that said they would limit access to the polls, potentially confuse voters and give more power to Republican lawmakers.