Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday denounced protesters who have rallied outside his home and office in Kentucky the past few days.
“I have a word for everybody who’s been in the front yard, and everybody who’s trying to get in my space, I will not be intimidated by you people, not a chance,” McConnell said during an interview with Kentucky radio station WHAS. “Not a single thing you do is going to alter how I operate on behalf of my constituents and the country for whom I have a significant amount of responsibility.”
Protesters gathered outside McConnell’s home in Louisville on Monday, chanting for his replacement in Congress while ringing cowbells and banging pots.
WHAS reported that between 20 and 30 people demonstrated outside his home because the Senate majority leader had not answered their phone calls. One person said that in addition to McConnell’s perceived lack of response following two mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, the protesters also convened to advocate for immigration reform and LGBT rights.
More than 100 people also held a vigil outside of his office, according to CNN.
The Senate majority leader is recovering at home after falling and fracturing his shoulder on Sunday. He joked that his neighbors’ property value would likely suffer following the protests.
“I have plenty of security. I haven’t needed to abandon my house. … Hopefully they’ll behave themselves. I’ve said to my neighbors, ‘It probably isn’t good for property values living next to me,'” he said.
McConnell has also faced scrutiny online. Twitter locked the Senate majority leader’s campaign account on Wednesday after posting a video of Black Lives Matter Louisville leader Chanelle Helm threatening him outside his home. In the video, Helm is heard saying she wished that someone should “just stab the motherf–ker in the heart,” in reference to a McConnell voodoo doll.
Twitter said the video breached its “violent threats policy.”
In response, the National Republican Senatorial Committee announced that it is suspending campaign advertising with Twitter.
“Twitter’s hostile actions toward Leader McConnell’s campaign are outrageous, and we will not tolerate it,” NRSC spokesman Jesse Hunt said. “The NRSC will suspend all spending with Twitter until further notice. We will not spend our resources on a platform that silences conservatives.”
