McConnell Declares U.S. Democracy ‘Solid’ Despite January 6: ‘That Was Not Good’

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House Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) tried to have it both ways by acknowledging public concerns about threats to American democracy, but regarding those threats as negligible.
NBC News reported on a Monday appearance McConnell made at the Scott County Chamber of Commerce in Georgetown, Kentucky. During this event, McConnell was asked about NBC’s new poll which found that most Americans support investigations into former President Donald Trump’s conduct.
The poll also found that most Americans consider “threats to democracy” the most important issue the country faces before November’s midterm elections. Asked about that, McConnell said “I do think it’s an important issue,” and he referred to Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
“There were those who were trying to prevent the orderly transfer of power for the first time in American history,” McConnell said. “And that was not good.”
The most threatening moment to American democracy after the 2020 election occurred on January 6, when Trump’s supporters violently laid siege to the U.S. Capitol in an effort to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s victory. Nonetheless, NBC reported that McConnell dismissed the idea of imminent danger to American democracy, noting “efforts to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power between the election on Nov. 3 and the inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021, that were ‘thwarted.'”
“I guess that’s had some impact on the poll,” McConnell said, “but look, I think we have a very solid democracy…I don’t think of the things that we need to worry about, I wouldn’t be worried about that one.”
McConnell also said during the event that there is “very little election fraud,” which “happens occasionally.” This position blatantly contradicts Trump, who ceaselessly pushes baseless claims that the election was “stolen” from him through mass voter fraud.