Sen. Mitch McConnell has been avoiding the White House like the plague.
The Republican majority leader said Thursday that has purposely refused to see President Donald Trump in person at the White House, citing lax precautions against the spread of covid-19.
“Their approach to how to handle this was different from mine,” McConnell, R-Ky., told NBC News.
“What I insisted we do in the Senate … is to wear masks and practice social distancing,” McConnell said.
Despite the sniping, the majority leader is one of Trump’s most important political allies and has backed the Republican president’s decision to pull the plug on talks for a new $2 trillion stimulus bill.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he has avoided visiting the White House for more than two months because of its handling of the coronavirus https://t.co/EoS1szcKCt pic.twitter.com/2KaUjakuqf
— Reuters (@Reuters) October 8, 2020
The two are also working closely together to quickly confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett as a new Supreme Court justice and yet McConnell was a notable no-show on Sept. 26 when Trump introduced the nominee in a Rose Garden ceremony.
The president, two senators and several other people tested positive after attending the event, where few wore masks and there was no social distancing. A third senator who did not attend the Barrett event later tested positive too.
McConnell is concerned that he needs every Republican vote he can get to jam Barrett’s nomination through the chamber, where the GOP holds a slim 53-47 majority.
With Republicans facing increasingly long odds of holding onto the Senate, some endangered GOP lawmakers are seeking to put some distance between themselves and Trump, who gets low marks from voters on handling the pandemic.
