Publicly Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is subdued in his response to Trump's ongoing hole-digging on white supremacy and Nazi violence in Charlottesville. But he is sending surrogates out to talk to reporters to let us know he is secretly "livid" about the whole thing.
WASHINGTON – There was a reason why it took Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell an entire night to respond to President Trump's chaotic news conference equating counter protesters with the Nazis they came to resist.
He was livid.
Uh, huh. McConnell also wants you to know that he is a true champion for civil rights.
Two sources close to the senator, speaking under condition of anonymity to describe private conversations, said the pro-civil rights Republican who lived through the 1960s in Kentucky closely deliberated on the best way forward.
He spoke to a number of aides and confidantes, reflecting on his long career in public service that began working as an aide to former Sen. John Sherman Cooper, a Kentucky senator who was instrumental in the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts and—specifically—how hard it was being a pro-civil rights Republican at the time.
Never mind that he didn't provide his surrogates any examples of his pro-civil rights actions or beliefs since the 1960s. Like how he doesn't see the need to restore the Voting Rights Act after the Supreme Court gutted it.
The Kentucky Republican said the heart of the historic anti-discrimination law remains intact, and the Supreme Court correctly ended the need for certain states to get federal permission before making any changes to their voting procedures.
"What was struck down were the provisions that absurdly treated the South differently," McConnell told USA TODAY. "They don’t apply anymore. It's 50 years later."
What do you say today, Leader McConnell, a year after telling us the nation has moved on? And, as a true champion of civil rights, what are you going to do about it? Continue to send out your surrogates to talk about your private fury? Continue to push Trump's agenda? Or do the job our Constitution—and the conscience you pretend to have—demands of you?