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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell isn’t denying an NBC News report that his ancestors owned slaves — and is pointing out that Barack Obama’s did, too.
I find myself once again in the same position as President Obama. We both opposed reparations and we both are the descendants of slave owners.
The Kentucky Republican invoked the former president after being asked on Capitol Hill about the NBC story, which found that two of his great-great-grandfathers owned at least 14 slaves.
In 2007, genealogical research surfaced showing that forebears of Obama’s white mother owned slaves. Obama was born to a Kenyan father and mother from Kansas.
The report on McConnell’s ancestors came amid a debate over reparations for the descendants of slaves. McConnell has been critical of the idea, as has Obama, who said on the campaign trail in 2008: “I have said in the past — and I’ll repeat again — that the best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed.”
McConnell’s reply to the story earned plaudits from conservatives on Twitter and a call to “vote this man out” from the press secretary to Democratic presidential hopeful Cory Booker, an African-American senator who has introduced a reparations bill. Democrat Amy McGrath, a Marine combat aviator, is seeking to unseat McConnell next year.
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