Mitch McConnell Makes Shocking Admission That Wealthy Donors Own Republican Senators

Republican Senator Josh Hawley has introduced a piece of legislation that would ban publicly-traded companies from spending money on politics, and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell is absolutely furious. According to reports, McConnell snapped at Hawley during a Republican lunch meeting this week, and McConnell reminded Hawley that without big money donors they wouldn't have seats in the Senate. This is a clear admission that wealthy donors are buying seats for Republicans, as Farron Cousins explains.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

According to a report from Punchbowl News, Mitch McConnell, surprisingly, actually sprang to life this week during a Republican caucus lunch meeting where McConnell lashed out at Republican Senator Josh Hawley, and then proceeded to issue a warning to the entire Republican caucus in the Senate. So here's what happened. Josh Hawley, republican senator from Missouri, you know, the guy who gave the fist of solidarity to the, uh, capitol rioters right before they stormed the capitol and then was seen running like a coward, and then wrote a book about being a manly man. Um, but anyway, Josh Hawley has put out new legislation in the Senate that basically would prohibit any kind of political spending from any corporation that is a publicly traded company, and that is the key. If it's a publicly traded company, if it's on nasdaq, if it's on Wall Street in any way, they cannot give money to a politician.

They cannot give money to political groups. That's what Hawley's legislation would do. Now, there's a couple caveats to that, and I'll get to that in just a moment, but just the existence of this legislation from Josh Hawley sent Mitch McConnell over the edge, and he, he didn't freeze up this time. He knew exactly what to say. And according to the reports, McConnell reportedly told Hawley, the only reason that he is in the Senate at all is due to the Senate Leadership Fund, which can take unregulated unlimited contributions for candidates and campaigns. So, Mitch McConnell got so mad at Josh Hawley trying to do away with a little bit of the corporate money in politics that McConnell had to get to him and say, listen, USOB, do you not realize that the only reason you are even in the Senate is because the wealthy donors bought that seat for you?

That's a hell of an admission from the Senate minority leader basically telling Josh Hawley and the entire Republican caucus that guys, the only reason we have any power is because these people, these corporations, they are buying our seats for us. That's what McConnell is admitting here. If we don't have that corporate money, they can't buy elections and buy by Republican party at that point. I don't know about you, but that kind of seems like the, the a, a huge deal, like really just mask off American politics. If corporations aren't buying the seats, Republicans can't win. That's what Mitch McConnell just admitted in my opinion. And then he went one step further. McConnell has said to have further told the GOP senators that if anyone signs onto the bill, they're going to get challenged from the right in a primary election. It's a direct threat to remove someone from Congress electorally. So not only does he say,

Listen, you idiots, we have to have corporations buy our seats for us, otherwise we'll never win. And then he says, if you support getting corporate money outta politics, I'm gonna get you outta politics. Whew. It's come a long way from the man who just, uh, month or two ago kept freezing up during press conferences, right? Apparently, you just gotta know which buzzwords to throw out there to get Mitch McConnell activated and act like he's among the living. Again, here's the thing about Holly's legislation, though. It's, it's bull crap, right? It's window dressing because Yeah. Oh, it would ban a corporation or executives from giving money directly to a politician, but what it doesn't ban them from doing is giving money to those nonprofits, you know, the dark money groups who then turn around and give money to Republican politicians. So it actually doesn't solve any problem.

It actually creates less transparency in the process. So it's, it's, it's horrible legislation, again, that actually gives corporations more cover to give money to the dark money groups who do not have to disclose their donors, the dark money groups, then send the money to whatever politicians they wish.