Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., made the strongest statement yet on Tuesday that the Republican-led Congress will not attempt to defund Planned Parenthood in must-pass government funding legislation this fall.
Speaking to WYMT Television in his home state of Kentucky, McConnell said the pending “battle” over government funding would not include a provision to strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood.
The organization has been under fire in recent weeks after undercover videos showed Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of fetal body parts. Abortion watchdog group Center for Medical Progress released a new video Tuesday, which is likely to stir anger among conservative lawmakers eager to strip taxpayer funding provided to Planned Parenthood.
But it won’t happen in the Senate, McConnell said.
“The president made it very clear he is not going to sign any bill that includes defunding of Planned Parenthood,” McConnell told WYMT. “That’s another issue that awaits a new president.”
McConnell said the GOP simply lacks the votes to pass such a measure, signaling his view that there is no way conservatives will get their way on the matter while President Obama is in the White House.
Republican leaders and leadership aides have repeatedly hinted they will not engage in a shutdown fight with Democrats, which in the past has damaged the party’s standing in the polls.
In August, McConnell said he’d exclude a Planned Parenthood provision from a measure to fund the government, which must pass by Sept. 30 to avoid a shutdown.
He pointed to past attempts by Republicans to pass controversial provisions by attaching them to spending legislation, all of which ended with the GOP sinking in the polls.
“This is a tactic that has been tried going back to the 90s and it always has the same ending — that the focus is on the government shutdown and not on the underlying issue that is being protested.” McConnell said in August.
A new poll released Monday by Quinnipiac University found that a plurality of Americans would again blame the Republican Party for a government closure that resulted from spending gridlock.
“We just don’t have the votes to get the outcome that we would like,” McConnell told WYMT. The president has the pen to sign. If he doesn’t sign it, it doesn’t happen.”
