More than 100 local community and business leaders attended a luncheon honoring U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell on Tuesday. He answered several questions during an on-stage interview — including saying that Democrats have moved too far left and endanger the future of the Senate, that more money should be spent on military defense, that the United States has a vested interest in Ukraine beating Russia in their war, and that President Joe Biden’s administration is responsible for inflation and the border.
The luncheon was hosted by the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce in the German American Ballroom at the Convention Center. Owensboro Health President and Ceo Mark Marsh and Owensboro Mayor Tom Watson gave brief remarks thanking McConnell for his efforts in supporting local causes, from healthcare legislation to securing funding for the downtown revitalization.
McConnell then spent nearly 45 minutes on stage taking questions from interview Joe Arnold, Vice-President of Strategic Communications for Kentucky Living.
A summary of the topics they addressed are as follows:
NEW BOOK
The two quickly addressed a soon-to-be-released biography called “The Price of Power: How Mitch McConnell Mastered the Senate, Change America and Lost His Party,” by Micahel Tackett, an Associated Press reporter.
McConnell said Tackett came to him about 3 years ago and said he was going to do a book about the Senator’s life and career.
“I didn’t initiate it, and I couldn’t stop it, so I said, ‘Well, you won’t have any trouble finding my enemies, but I’d like to direct you to a few of my friends,’” McConnell said.
McConnell said he has not read the book but hopes he was treated fairly in it.
MCCONNELL, THE APPROPRIATOR
Arnold said McConnell is known from the local to national levels as an appropriator for his dedication to securing funding for projects. McConnell said he always saw it as part of his responsibility.
“We decide how much we’re going to spend when we set a top line, and then the question is, ‘are you going to give all of the decisions to the administration?’ Congressionally directed funding saves no money at all. It’s just a question of who makes the decision,” McConnell said. “My thought was always to get as much for Kentucky as we could. I have tried over the years to direct funds to our state. I don’t have any problems with projects in Indiana, but it’s not where I get elected. I’m glad that I’ve been able to be helpful here, and I’ve tried to be helpful in other places as well.”
FUTURE OF THE SENATE, THOUGHTS ON DEMOCRATS
McConnell’s tenure in the Senate is historic, literally. He was the longest-serving Senate Leader ever. While he’s stepping down as the Republican Leader at the end of the year, he stressed he’s not leaving the Senate. However, he did say he has concerns about the governmental body’s future.
“What I fear the most from the other side is how far left they have all become. You’ve watched the transformation in western Kentucky, and in fact all over Kentucky,” he said. “When I started, it was hard to find Republicans west of I-65. Now you can’t find a Democrat with a flashlight. That’s how much it’s changed. I think that’s reflective of the fact that the other side has become very urban-oriented and very coastal-driven.”
He continued, “For example, the Democratic Leader of the Senate and the Democratic Leader of the House both live in the same neighborhood, Brooklyn — you get the drift here. I think that has alienated large swaths of America, including Kentucky, that they derisively refer to as flyover territory.”
McConnell said he’s afraid if the Democratic Party controls the Senate they will try to get rid of the filibuster, which requires a higher vote of 60 percent than the typical 51 needed to pass legislation.
“(The filibuster) produces two good things. It either kills bad (ideas), or you have to reach a bipartisan agreement to do something,” he said. “A classic example was the infrastructure bill, which I participated in. It’s about the only thing I thought Biden was doing right.”
McConnell claimed that if Democrats get rid of the filibuster, “they’ll admit the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as two new states — that’s four Democratic senators in perpetuity — and then they’ll go after the Supreme Court. That’s how Democrats are these days, and that’s why you can’t find them in our state anymore. And it’s not just us, most of the states between the coasts have become much more Republican because the Democrats have moved so far left.”
SENATE SEATS UP FOR RE-ELECTION
McConnell said of the 13 Republican incumbents who are running for re-election in the Senate, he doesn’t think any of them are going to be defeated. He said having at least 51 of the seats is the “magic number.”
“It means you could do something really dramatic single-handedly, and the most dramatic decision I made when I was Majority Leader was not to fill the Supreme Court vacancy in the middle of the 2016 election. Boom, didn’t happen,” he said. “The Majority Leader can’t always guarantee the outcome, but frequently what you choose not to do is the most important thing.”
Arnold asked if “the threat of losing the filibuster and … potentially court packing … could fire up voters” in the 2024 race.
“It shows how desperate (Democrats) are,” McConnell said. “What they’re saying, in effect, is ‘if I can’t get my way, I want to break the rules to get my way because my way is so much more important than the structure of the Senate.’”
BIPARTISANSHIP
McConnell said some issues are worth working through differences for the good of the people, specifically pointing to infrastructure.
“Our infrastructure is crumbling all over the country,” he said. “I watched the Obama administration fail to get there. I had a front-row seat during the Trump administration. My wife was the Secretary of Transportation, and they couldn’t figure out how to get through the process. … I think the American people say ‘we’re not in love with either side, we know you have big differences, but why don’t you look at the things you can agree on and do those?’ That’s the approach I’ve taken. Some issues deserve bipartisan support.”
FOREIGN POLICY: UKRAINE, ISRAEL, AND AFGHANISTAN
McConnell spent several minutes addressing foreign policy, largely focusing on the need to increase defense spending in order to prevent another global war. He also noted that it’s important that Ukraine defeat Russia, or else the United States could easily be drawn directly into another war.
“You’ve heard people complain about what we’re spending in Ukraine,” he said. “Let me just point out that most of what we’re spending in Ukraine is being spent here in 38 different states, retooling our industrial base and sending older weapons to Ukraine. You’ve heard people complain that the Europeans aren’t doing enough. They’re doing more than we are.”
He added, “What we have now is the axis of evil — North Korea, China, Russia, Iran, and Iran’s proxies — all talking to each other. What they have in common is they hate all democratic countries. The one good thing that’s come of this is that … more NATO countries now are spending 2% of their GDP, which is the threshold of seriousness.”
McConnell said it’s “a lot cheaper to prevent a war than to have one.”
“My message is, Reagan had it right: Peace, you get through strength,” he said. “We have had four budgets submitted in a row by the Biden administration that didn’t even keep up with inflation. It’s not just helping Ukraine win, which is immensely important, but also getting greater. You can’t just do it in one year, build up defense spending to the point where they don’t want to mess with us. It’s not complicated, but it’s hard to sell in a democracy because it seems a long way away. But trust me, this is the biggest challenge that we have.”
Referring to the ongoing conflicts between Ukraine and Russia along with Israel and Hamas, McConnell said the definition of winning is complicated.
“My own view is when you’ve got democratically elected allies with whom we are associated and helping, we ought not to dictate the terms of the fighting,” he said. “The Biden administration has been trying to dictate to the Israelis what they can and can’t do. They’re also trying to dictate to the Ukrainians what they can and can’t do, in terms of the types of weapons. Ukrainians, you may have noticed about a week ago, just went into Russia. I’m sure they freaked out over the State Department, but I thought that was a pretty damn smart thing to do, to get on offense and go to Russia.”
McConnell said he thinks Putin is hoping that the United States and other allies will lose interest. McConnell said it won’t leave his mind, and he is going to keep pushing for increased defense spending to keep Putin from starting World War III.
“I think the worst can be avoided by just looking strong and being strong and committed to getting defense spending where it ought to be. What they respect is the possibility of a devastating attack,” he said.
McConnell pointed to the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan as an example. He said their presence was intimidating, and the conflicts arose following their removal.
“I think the biggest mistake the Biden administration made was running out of Afghanistan,” he said. “We were not involved in an ongoing war in Afghanistan. You’ve heard it described as America’s longest war. It wasn’t. We hadn’t been in combat there in years, but we were keeping the lid on, and it was not an easy place to launch attacks like 9-11. … Boom, all of a sudden we go running out, leave an enormous amount of equipment there, and a few months later — I can’t prove this — but a few months later, Putin decides to attack Ukraine.”
INFLATION AND THE BORDER
McConnell said the Biden administration is directly responsible for inflation and the border crisis.
“Without a single Republican vote, they dumped $2.6 trillion on our economy. Everybody, in one way or another, particularly in government, benefited from that, but it was the wrong thing to do,” he said, adding that it will create lasting inflation. “Inflation is a lot easier to create than it is to stop. … Make no mistake about it, the reason for this inflation was not anything that happened during the Trump administration. This was strictly Biden.”
McConnell said the U.S.-Mexico border went under a “dramatic change from an essentially manageable, closed border to chaos.”
“I’m a big fan of legal immigration, having married someone who legally immigrated, but we can’t handle what’s been going on down there,” he said.
However, McConnell acknowledged there’s not an easy solution for either issue.
“I think those are the two weakest issues in the presidential race because there’s no good answer to either one of them,” he said.
BIDEN DROPPING OUT
Arnold asked what McConnell’s opinion was of how Biden “was treated by the Democratic Party in this process … being pressured out of the race.”
“They were smart, because he was not going to win,” McConnell said. “It was clear after that debate in June that he was going to lose, and winning is a lot better than losing. It was a smart play on their part. It changes the race. Whether it changes it for better or worse, is unclear.”
MESSAGE TO POLITICIANS AND AUDIENCE
Toward the end of his interview, McConnell had a note of encouragement and a message of thanks to those in the audience as well as Kentucky at large.
To elected officials, he said: “Over the years, I’ve noticed two kinds of politicians: those that want to make a point, and those that want to actually make a difference. It seems to me, if you get elected to do something, why don’t you try to accomplish something so that when your term is up, you could go back and say, ‘I actually made an impact. I made a difference.’”
And to the audience and general public, McConnell said: “I want to thank you for the opportunity to serve as long as I have. Without the people of Kentucky, I couldn’t have stayed there this long, and without my colleagues, I wouldn’t have become the longest-serving Senate Leader in American history. I’m full of gratitude, but I want to add that I’m not leaving. I’m still there and going to try to make a difference as long as I can. I really wanted just express my gratitude to all of you for sticking with me all these years.”
