WASHINGTON (Fwrd Axis) — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell responded to the backlash and defended his record on civil rights after comments he made about Black voters.
McConnell’s reversal comes after he made comments earlier in the week when responding to the Democrats’ push to pass voting rights legislation.
“If you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans,” McConnell said Wednesday, implying that Black voters are not Americans.
The comment sparked a backlash from civil rights groups as #MitchPlease began to trend on social media, which included several Democratic lawmakers using the hashtag.
McConnell attempted to set the record straight on Friday, saying he “inadvertently omitted the word ‘almost,’” but then after the news conference, he spoke with his aide and returned to the microphone. “The omitted word is ‘all,’ not ‘almost,’” he said.
“The criticism is an outrageous mischaracterization of my record as a result of leaving one word out inadvertently the other day, which I just now have supplied to you, is deeply offensive,” McConnell said during the news conference.
“I have had African American speech writers, schedulers, office managers over the years,” he added.
