Mitch McConnell Caught On Tape

Here's the entirety of an article from the editors of the New York Times entitled "No Comment Necessary: The Gosh Darn Minimum Wage."

The Nation magazine obtained an audio tape of Senator Mitch McConnell discussing strategy with wealthy donors at a conference convened by the Koch brothers. He said he would seek to shrink the federal government “across the board” and explained what the Senate would look like if he were to become majority leader.

Via The Nation

And we’re not going to be debating all these gosh darn proposals. That’s all we do in the Senate is vote on things like raising the minimum wage (inaudible)—cost the country 500,000 new jobs; extending unemployment—that’s a great message for retirees; uh, the student loan package the other day, that’s just going to make things worse, uh. These people believe in all the wrong things.

He also shared his opinion on money in politics:

So all Citizens United did was to level the playing field for corporate speech….We now have, I think, the most free and open system we’ve had in modern times. The Supreme Court allowed all of you to participate in the process in a variety of different ways. You can give to the candidate of your choice. You can give to Americans for Prosperity, or something else, a variety of different ways to push back against the party of government.

Click here for the article, which also includes an audio clip.

UPDATE: Here's Daily Kos's take on McConnell's comments made to wealthy donors, not realizing he's being recorded, by Joan McCarter, in a post entitled "Mitch McConnell exposes Kochs' extremist agenda, and just how committed to it he is":

The audio leak from this summer's Koch brothers secret confab has provided a treasure trove of information about just how deeply Republican Senate candidates are embedded in the Koch brothers' pocket. Iowa's Joni Ernst credits the Kochs with her political life. Arkansan's Tom Cotton votes Koch rather than Arkansas. And Colorado's Cory Gardner was blatant in his begging to have his race bankrolled by the Koch cabal.

But it's Mitch McConnell that takes the cake, and who demonstrates as clear as can be the really extreme agenda Republicans are buying into. After declaring that "in the House and Senate, we own the budget," McConnell describes how he can shut the government down.

"We can pass the spending bill, and I assure you that in the spending bill, we will be pushing back against this bureaucracy by doing what’s called placing riders in the bill: No money can be spent to do this or to do that. We’re going to go after them on healthcare, on financial services, on the Environmental Protection Agency, across the board.

"And we’re not going to be debating all these gosh darn proposals. That’s all we do in the Senate is vote on things like raising the minimum wage—cost the country 500,000 new jobs; extending unemployment—that’s a great message for retirees; the student loan package the other day; that’s going to make things worse. These people believe in all the wrong things."

That means defunding Obamacare, cutting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (which has saved Americans nearly $13 billion annually just in lower fees and interest charges for credit cards), and slashing the budget of the oil-baron Kochs' nemesis, the EPA. It means being willing to shut down the government for that agenda. It means going against the political will of the nation—74 percent support raising the minimum wage, 69 percent support extending unemployment benefits—to do the Kochs' bidding.

Laura Clawson pointed out earlier that McConnell's public justification for blocking all action on anything the American public wants is because of Harry Reid's totalitarian control over the Senate. Clearly, that's hooey. This has nothing to do with principle, and everything to do with representing the interests of Charles and David Koch and friends.