MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has given Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a new nickname.
“Mitch, guess what, I can’t speak Russian, so get an interpreter to tell this to you if you will,” Scarborough said, speaking directly to McConnell on his daily program Thursday. “Mitch, in America, we have elections every two years, and you have an election coming up right now, and you’ve got some problems because the kids are all calling you Moscow Mitch. You’re going to be chokehold Mitch, next.”
Scarborough, who has called McConnell “Moscow Mitch” since President Trump’s impeachment trial, mocked the Republican leader: “The kids are probably going to start calling you that because again, you don’t have a 10-vote majority, you can’t hide behind the fact, oh, there are all these Republicans and I can’t control them. Mitt Romney will vote to ban chokeholds. … Lisa Murkowski will vote. I think Susan Collins even, with the race that she’s in now … she’ll also vote to ban chokeholds.”
House Democrats this week introduced a bill that would make it easier to investigate and punish police officers accused of misconduct and implement a nationwide ban on chokeholds, which have become a center of controversy in the debate over police brutality.
The May 25 death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes, has sparked nationwide demand that America’s leaders do something to address systemic racism and police brutality.
“In the Senate, Democrats are going to fight like hell to make this a reality,” said Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. “Now we must collectively, all Americans, raise our voices and call on Leader McConnell to put this reform bill on the floor of the Senate before July to be debated and voted on.”
McConnell said Tuesday that Senate Republicans were crafting their own legislation that would do something to quell the “obvious racial discrimination that we have seen on full display on our television screens over the last two weeks.”
Sen. Tim Scott, the GOP’s only black senator, is leading the effort in close consultation with the White House.
“I think it’s important for this nation to take a very powerful stand and position that says, ‘We’re listening, we’re hearing, and we’re reacting,” Scott said this week.
Several Senate Republicans have indicated they would vote in favor of a bill that would ban chokeholds by police, but McConnell has stayed mum on the issue.
The Senate majority leader’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
“You’re going to be asked about it on the campaign trail,” Scarborough warned Republicans. “It’s going to be a lot tougher than you think it is.”
