Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell accused Democrats of threatening to strip the nation of important institutions and replacing them with the policies of the far-left and compared them to “far-left mobs attacking statues of our Founding Fathers.”
“So, while we have far-left mobs attacking statues of our Founding Fathers from coast to coast, we have far-left politicians attacking the institutions they left us,” McConnell said.
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McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, criticized Democrats for proposing an end to the longstanding legislative filibuster in the Senate, advocating for additional seats on the Supreme Court that could be filled with Democrats, making the District of Columbia the 51st state, and ending the Electoral College, among other proposals.
McConnell said Democrats have attacked the judicial branch, pointing to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s comments in March to abortion supporters on the steps of the Supreme Court that threatened GOP-appointed justices “will pay the price” for their decisions.
“We have an entire political movement that is telling us out loud they’ve lost patience with playing by the rules and may well declare war on the rulebook itself,” McConnell said.
Democrats have been equally critical of the GOP for failing to take up hundreds of bills passed in the Democratic-led House, including a $3 trillion federal aid package that addresses the coronavirus, underfunded pensions, and the financially struggling U.S. Post Office.
Schumer, a New York Democrat, downplayed a new positive jobs report released on Thursday, calling on Senate Republicans to “get off their hands and finally work with Democrats to quickly provide additional federal fiscal relief,” and warning if they do nothing, “the pain America is experiencing will only worsen.”
Republicans said they’ll take up a new coronavirus aid package in July, but it will not include many of the spending items in the House bill.
McConnell compared Democrats to the protesters knocking down and defacing statues.
“We cannot let radicals tear down their likenesses … or their legacies,” McConnell said. “We must preserve the gifts and the institutions we celebrate so our grandchildren and their grandchildren can celebrate them as well.”
