Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared in Owensboro Friday for a campaign rally at Castlen Steel. A group of supporters and political candidates gathered to hear McConnell speak about the COVID-19 pandemic and the importance of voting.
McConnell also discussed the $3 trillion CARES Act that helped keep small businesses, hospitals and local governments propped up as America remains on the road to recovery.
In an ad recently released by McConnells’ team, local farmer Suzanne White, owner of Cecil Farms, said the Paycheck Protection Program personally kept her business afloat through McConnell’s PPP loans as part of the CARES Act package. Because of that, her farm was able to “keep feeding Kentucky families.”
“I want to reassure you, we are going to get past this crisis.” he said. “Until we get a vaccine, the single most important thing we can do is to take this seriously … we’re having a resurgence in Kentucky and all over the country. This thing is not gone. It doesn’t know about our election, it doesn’t care about our election. We have to kill it.
“We’re not going to shut the economy down again. We paid a heck of a price for cooping everybody up for two months. So let’s work safely and resume our lives as normal as we can, so we can, once and for all, throw these darn [masks] away. The greatest country in the world is not going to be defeated by this virus.”
McConnell added that America had big challenges, including the spread of the coronavirus, but it wasn’t a fundamentally broken nation and was still the greatest nation in the world.
“The coronavirus has been something we haven’t had in a hundred years. It hit us hard earlier this year and changed all of our lives in a variety of different ways,” he said. “We had this incredible advice from public health officials saying we needed to shut the economy down at the same time … on the economic side — remember in February of this year, we had the greatest economy in 50 years. Two months later, we looked like the Great Depression.”
After stating his belief that the 2020 election was the most important one to date, McConnell referred to current Democrats as far more radical than those in the past, saying they present major risks for the House and Senate.
“There’s a new level of radicalism sweeping across the country,” he said. “What’s the definition of radicalism? Breaking the filibuster rule in the Senate without giving the majority the opportunity to do anything it wants to, without any consultation with the minority. That changes the Senate fundamentally for the first time in our country’s history.”
He further referred to Democrats as “umpires calling the balls and strikes” instead of players on the field. He said every single Democrat running for a U.S. Senate seat this year wanted to fundamentally change the U.S. into something it had never been.
“That has to stop. And the way to stop it is with 51 votes in the Senate. Because the Senate Majority Leader gets to decide what we’re going to do,” he said. “So I assure you, my friends, if I’m Majority Leader, we’re not getting rid of the filibuster, we’re not admitting D.C. or Puerto Rico as a state, and we’re not packing the Supreme Court.”
Rep. Brett Guthrie, also up for reelection this year, was present at the event to show his support for McConnell.
“We’re working hard to flip the House. But there’s one thing Kentucky can specifically do to really make sure this country doesn’t go in the wrong direction,” Guthrie said. “We have a choice of who the next majority leader in the Senate is going to be. And I tell you, we already have a great one. And I think if we do not send the Senator back to Washington D.C., Chuck Schumer will be the Senate Majority Leader of this country, and we do not want to do that.”
McConnell described Guthrie as a “great partner” to have in the House before commending State Senator Matt Castlen for his own successes in Daviess County.
“Matt Castlen built this great business, and we’re proud of him,” McConnell said.
McConnell also pointed out what he call a “great partnership” with Mayor Tom Watson, including their years-long joint effort to bring the downtown riverfront project to fruition.
“It’s been a joy to see what it’s become,” McConnell said, “as you all have added in all the businesses and opportunities to go downtown for the one neighborhood everybody shares on the river.”
