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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s home in Louisville, Kentucky, was vandalized early Saturday morning. Spray-painted messages over the Republican leader’s front door appear to be in response to his opposition to increasing coronavirus relief checks to Americans from $600 to $2,000.
One message reads “weres (sic) my money,” another, “Mitch kills the poor,” according to photos shared by CBS News’ Louisville affiliate WLKY. McConnell blocked a vote on increasing the checks for three days in a row last week, calling the proposal “socialism for rich people.”
McConnell and the GOP argue that the bill would benefit the wealthy. McConnell, however, previously supported the $1 trillion 2017 tax cut, which disproportionately benefited the wealthy. The GOP leader also takes issue with how much money the bill would cost the government. Bigger checks would amount to an estimated $530 billion, about $385 billion more than what $600 checks would cost, according to Heights Securities. The Senate, led by McConnell, on Friday approved a $740 billion defense policy bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act, NDAA.
To approve the NDAA, the senate had to override a veto by President Trump, marking the first time Congress has voted to override Mr. Trump during his entire presidency.
After blocking the House bill that would have authorized $2,000 stimulus checks, McConnell then introduced a bill that linked the increased payments to two separate issues valued by Mr. Trump: Nixing Section 230, a legal shield for internet companies, and creating a commission to examine election integrity. The president also tied a repeal of Section 230 to the NDAA, but several members of Congress, including some Republicans, successfully argued that it was not relevant to national security.
“Here is the deal,” McConnell said in remarks on the Senate floor earlier this week. “The Senate is not going to split apart the three issues that President Trump linked together just because Democrats are afraid to address two of them.”
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat, called the vandalism to McConnell’s home “unacceptable” on Twitter Saturday. “While the First Amendment protects our freedom of speech, vandalism is reprehensible and never acceptable for any reason,” Beshear wrote.
McConnell said in his own statement that “vandalism and the politics of fear have no place in our society.”
“I’ve spent my career fighting for the First Amendment and defending peaceful protest. I appreciate every Kentuckian who has engaged in the democratic process whether they agree with me or not,” reads his statement. “My wife and I have never been intimidated by this toxic playbook. We just hope our neighbors in Louisville aren’t too inconvenienced by this radical tantrum.”
It appeared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home in San Francisco was also vandalized this weekend, CBS SF Bay Area reports. The garage door of a residence in the neighborhood of Pacific Heights was spray painted and a pig’s head was left on the sidewalk.
The graffiti, which said “cancel rent” and “we want everything,” also appears to be related to the coronavirus stimulus checks. Democrats are in support of bigger checks, and Pelosi herself implored McConnell not to block a vote on the bill. “Mitch McConnell, remove the obstacle that you have to the American people having the opportunity to have that direct payment, and do it now,” she said.
San Francisco police would not confirm whether the residence belongs to the speaker. Pelosi is currently in Washington, D.C.
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