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Sen. Mitch McConnell Tells CNN’s John King Of His Tea Party Detractors: ‘I Love Them’

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While the Tea Party is by and large considered right wing, that doesn’t mean it gets along with most Republicans, though tonight one of those blacklisted GOPers sent love to a group largely distrustful of him. On tonight’s John King USA, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told host John King that, no matter how much they may dislike him, “I love them” for helping them regain a sizable contingent in Congress.

Sen. McConnell extended his praise after being asked to discuss the Tea Party by King, who noted that “many people in the Tea Party, they don’t think so highly of you. They view you as part of what they call the dreaded Republican establishment that’s too willing to compromise, to willing to make deals.” Sen. McConnell asserted that he didn’t seem to mind the skepticism at all:

Regardless of what they think about me, I love them. I think without their effort we wouldn’t be in a position to begin to change the direction in Washington. They helped us have a good election last year in which we took the House of Representatives and now have a robust minority in the Senate. Without them, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. In the previous Congress it was spend, spend, spend– no consideration whatsoever for the financial problems the United States had. That’s changed, those days are behind us and we thank the Tea Party for helping us get in this position.

Sen. McConnell’s effusive praise comes as somewhat of a shock given his relationship with the Tea Party– after all, they’ve become a force in Congress no thanks to him. This is the Minority Leader who refused to endorse the Senate’s most vocal Tea Party leader, fellow Kentuckian Rand Paul, when he was a candidate (and then some). And in this debate, Sen. McConnell never once considered the option of not raising the debt ceiling at all, which was wildly popular among Tea Party groups. Has Sen. McConnell had a change of heart now that the Tea Party got his party a major victory in not having to raise taxes in this budget deal, or is he just appeasing a group he may consider far more powerful than knowledgeable to avoid a primary challenge in the future?

The segment via CNN below:

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  • Anonymous

    where is your front page story about Pat Buchannon calling the President a boy on rev Al’s show?  You show anything else

  • Anonymous

    Thank you Tea Party..I love you too!!! Finally some fiscal sanity and responsibility is being forced upon Washington.
    The Dems can call us terrorists all they want for taking their credit cards away!!

  • http://www.constitutionallibertarian.co.cc/ DavidKramer

    McConnell is just like any other leftist in DC, he is a leftist (aka statist). He thinks that we the taxpayer needs him and his cronies. Hmmmm, maybe McConnell and the establishment leftists should quit attempting to espouse the beliefs of us taxpayers and pay attention to their own actions.

    So, what has come out of this whole debt ceiling and spending cut ordeal? They have given carte blanche to spend like DC has always spent. They have end loaded the cuts AGAIN, which means absolutely NOTHING.

    Yet they are attempting to foment the narrative that the Tea Party has won and it is the Tea Party deal. What a BUNCH OF BULLSHIT.

    This is EXACTLY what I said was going to be the narrative. That no matter what came out of this hogwash, that the Tea Party will be the supposed progenitor of the action. Funny, the Tea Party wanted cuts NOW and the Tea Party wanted fiscal responsibility enforced by a balanced budget amendment. Do not forget, polls stated that 66% of the nation wanted that. Yet what do we get? Yeah, you guessed it, a debt ceiling raise, a 10 year budget plan that SUPPOSEDLY makes cuts in the waning years of that 10 year budget.

    Sounds like the same old same old to me.

    Me and others stated this would be the EXACT thing that the DC establishment would do. By the way, have you seen the DJIA and the price of gold?

    You better not be listening to the MSM folks. If you do, that is YOUR fault, not ours.

    Got Gold, Got Oil Stock, Got Food Stock, Got Food, Got Info, Got Lead, Got Tea?

  • Anonymous

    Last election cycle the congressman I thought most needed to lose their seat was Harry Reid. This election I’ve already marked it down as McConnell. With his talk about how he wants to beat the president and all that crap about how his goal was just to make sure Democrats took any blame, he certainly came across to me as the slimiest politician in this whole debt ceiling mess. And that’s saying something.

  • Anonymous

    Sorry McConnell but no one likes you. If there was a book called “Why you should hate Republicans” your face would be on the cover.

  • Cain

    Funny. Fox News is saying on their website that The Tea Party was a loser in this deal. 

  • Texan

    Why would the boy who ran on “Transparency!” sign the bill behind closed doors?

  • Texan

    I’m gonna mock the f out of “fishjuggler” and call mitch a rino. ;)

  • Texan

    You watched al the racebaiter sharpton’s show? ROFLMBAO!!!!

  • Anonymous

    Dear Francis:

    In answer to your question, McConnell is acting like a politician.  The same way Obama acts towards the more extremist wing of his party.

  • Anonymous

    I guess it takes a boy — to know a BOY.

  • Anonymous

    While the Tea Party is by and large considered right wing, that doesn’t
    mean it gets along with most Republicans…

    That’s because that “by and large” consideration is juvenile, simplistic and not especially connected to reality. Mostly, it’s people who can do math and want the government to get off their ass and out of their wallet, and busy itself with not heading over that fiscal cliff we’re rapidly approaching.

    “I’m a Leavemealoneican. My wife is a Shutupocrat. We’re a mixed marriage.”

    Yes, I stole that.

  • Anonymous

    Nobody won. Nobody. There was nothing to win here. The only bright spot in this for the Tea Party is that the nature of the debate has moved somewhat in their direction.

  • Anonymous

    You mean with the cameras running?

  • Anonymous

    Can’t argue with that.
    Can argue that the bright spot will probably turn dark by next election.

  • Jerry Baustian

    Mitch is not one of my favorite GOP senators, but he did not become the leader of his party by ignoring what is happening in the party. He recognized that the old log-rolling days are over… that scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours is over… that earmarks are over. 

    He can also read the polls… the tea party activists are still motivated, they are still pretty solid against the big-spending Democrats… and McConnell very much wants to be Majority Leader and serve with a conservative president.

    The country needs budget reform, tax reform, and entitlement reform. Mitch has never been known as a reformer; but if it is the will of the Senate then he will work to make it happen. I would not expect any big victories during this current congress, but will wait and see how he does in 2013. 

    I should point out that he has never been a RINO, and I don’t expect him to turn into one. There are still a few in the Senate, but even the usual suspects voted with the party during the debt limit debate (Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Scott Brown). The others are long gone (Spector, Chafee).

  • Texan

    Really? Must be why the carney barker made the announcement…

  • Anonymous

    this from the guy who used the word “boy” in complete innocence, I suppose.

  • Jerry Baustian

    It took me all of two minutes to confirm that Mitch McConnell is not up for reelection until 2014.

    So I guess he won’t be losing his seat in 2012.

  • http://www.constitutionallibertarian.co.cc/ DavidKramer

    Well, we in Wisconsin got rid of Feingold and put in Johnson. I have been liking his statements and votes so far.

    As for McConnell, he is part of the establishment. I will wait and see what happens, but I expect the same spending to go on. Heck, Obama has to get re elected again. That is what this was all about wasn’t it. To get past the next election, because the government needs that money to keep their buddies happy.

    Time will tell, we will see if any spending drops, if it does not, my choice has been a good one. I have gotten rid of all retirement and diversified into commodities. So far, so good. If it continues, I only make more.

  • John

    We didnt avert a cirisis, just delayed it’s inevitability. You better believe the dollar is living on borrowed time and so are our futures.

  • Anonymous

    Tea party, tea party, tea party.  Did Jon King ask McConnell if he had personally received an apology from the VEEP for calling republicans “terrorists”, or did John ignore that story?

    bwahahahaha

    CNN thinks people take them seriously?  So funny.

    King, like Wolfie, Piers and Anderson are nothing but a bunch of left wing hacks, Obama suck-ups….I’m surrised McConnel even bothered going on the air with them – waste of time, no one watches CNN anymore.

  • Anonymous

    Tea party, tea party, tea party.  Did Jon King ask McConnell if he had personally received an apology from the VEEP for calling republicans “terrorists”, or did John ignore that story?

    bwahahahaha

    CNN thinks people take them seriously?  So funny.

    King, like Wolfie, Piers and Anderson are nothing but a bunch of left wing hacks, Obama suck-ups….I’m surrised McConnel even bothered going on the air with them – waste of time, no one watches CNN anymore.

  • http://www.constitutionallibertarian.co.cc/ DavidKramer

    You may of stole it, but I am commandeering it.

  • Anonymous

    So what you’re saying is I’m already prepared for the election AFTER the next one? Nice!

  • Anonymous

    I’m a Jeebuzgetoutofmybidnezicon

    If anything I’m closer to being a centerist.  I am not right wing and not left wing.  I’m about a click to the right, tiny bit libertarian, but definitely a ‘stop hammering me with your good ideas, if you want to do it so badly, do it/fund it/create it yourself and stop demanding that we create it/fund it/do it for you’ sort of person.

    This is what happens when the MSM believes it’s own BS.  They create a strawman and then worship it until somehow they strangely recall that it’s true. 

  • Anonymous

    The others are less slimey because they don’t confess?

  • Just some Blow Hard…

    I am just going top say one thing and let you other blow hards fight it out.  It was a very Christian thing to say.

  • Anonymous

    I assume every politician to be a liar until proven honest, but McConnell saying these things shows just how stupid he thinks the American people are, that he doesn’t even need to pay lip service to what his job is supposed to be.

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