Back in March, President Joe Biden signed one of his central campaign promises—the American Rescue Plan—into law. The long-awaited pandemic relief package provided survival funds for small businesses, preserved expanded unemployment benefits, and delivered $1400 stimulus checks to hundreds of millions of Americans.
But the bill passed without one single Republican vote. Senate Democrats managed to bypass an inevitable Republican filibuster using a budget bypass ironically called reconciliation.
Though Republicans railed against the bill as a Democratic wish list and a gross episode of fiscal recklessness by the federal government, they bragged to their constituents about the funding it secured for their states.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is the latest Republican lawmaker to call attention to the funds the American Rescue Plan injected into his state, but unlike his colleagues, McConnell wasn't shy about his opposition to the bill.
Watch his bizarre comments to constituents below.
McConnell said:
"It passed on a straight party-line vote, not a single member of my party voted for it, so you're gonna get a lot more money. I didn't vote for it, but you're gonna get a lot more money. Cities and counties in Kentucky will get close to seven or eight hundred million dollars. ... My advice to members of the legislature and to others is spend it wisely, because hopefully this windfall doesn't come again."
The Senate Minority Leader clarified that he hoped the windfall wouldn't come again because he believes "we have floated entirely too much money across the country."
But the Senator admitting that his own constituents would be receiving hundreds of millions of dollars, while reiterating that he didn't support it, seemed straight from the fantasies of Democratic fundraisers.
Biden himself told a White House press pool that McConnell "loves" the Rescue Plan, adding:
"Look it up man, he's bragging about it in Kentucky."
As such, someone made the video into a straightforward (likely unofficial) campaign ad by tacking on "I'm Joe Biden and I approve this message" at the end.
It worked, to say the least.
McConnell's words were instantly used against him.
Well done, Senator?
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