During a Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing partly focused on the DEA budget, Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said, “Without the people of America, Mexico, figuratively speaking, would be eating cat food out of a can and living in a tent behind an Outback.” This was tied to Kennedy’s suggestion that the United States invade Mexico to destroy drug cartels.
His statement was received with robust condemnation from all over the Americas: Mexico’s foreign affairs secretary called Kennedy “a profoundly ignorant man;” Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S., Esteban Moctezuma, released a video in which he reads the letter he sent to Kennedy, seeking to “enlighten” the Senator on the mutually beneficial relationship between the United States and Mexico. Specifically, the tens of billions of dollars in trade Louisiana has in surplus from Mexico, and the approximately tens of thousands of people it employs.
I don't think that people of Louisiana field represented by the vulgar and racist words you used you are obliged to offer an apology to your citizens because what you asserted is not worthy of the state of Louisiana known for being a cultural Melting Pot giving the moral standards expressing your unfortunate statement.
Kennedy has spent the last couple of weeks dodging questions about his statement, and is refusing to apologize for his choice of words. But Kennedy’s statements were so racist and backward that even Fox News host Neil Cavuto tried to finesse some kind of apology out of him.
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It took just 30 seconds for Kennedy to slander all of Mexico.
On Wednesday, Cavuto tried four times to get Kennedy to show even the thinnest recognition that what he said could be considered offensive. Each time, Kennedy deflected the question, at one point saying, “Everybody’s a racist now, it seems. If everybody is a racist, then nobody is a racist.” But the best part was when Kennedy explained that if you watch the whole video and know the “context” of what he was saying, you would know what he meant. That nonsense led to this exchange:
NEIL CAVUTO: But you don't take back any of those other words, just to be clear, that was the message.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: No, if you'll go, listen, if you'll go listen. Have you listened to the tape, to the entire remarks?
CAVUTO: I have.
KENNEDY: Well, then I think you'll understand, at least from my point of view, what I was saying and why I was saying it.
CAVUTO: I don’t.
Hehe.
Kennedy has a long history of making racist statements about foreign governments, all while drawling a homespun style of ignorance that belies his Oxford education. Kennedy refuses to apologize for his remarks, probably because he’s a terrible person. Or is it because he sees his voting base as racists who appreciate an elected official who says ignorant and bigoted things about Mexico. Maybe both?
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Hell yeah! Democrats and progressives simply crushed it from coast to coast on Tuesday night, so co-hosts David Nir and David Beard are devoting this week's entire episode of "The Downballot" to reveling in all the highlights. At the very top of the list is Jacksonville, where Democrats won the mayor's race for just the second time in three decades—and gave the Florida Democratic Party a much-needed shot in the arm. Republicans also lost the mayor's office in the longtime conservative bastion of Colorado Springs for the first time since the city began holding direct elections for the job 45 years ago.