She will ‘do anything’ to get elected, he says
MARY TROYAN
USA TODAY
CLEVELAND - Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky delivered a feisty prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention Tuesday night that was loaded with personal and political barbs aimed at presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
“I am here to tell you Hillary Clinton will say anything, do anything, and be anything to get elected president,” said McConnell, who lamented his time in Washington with President Bill Clinton in the White House and later with Hillary Clinton as a fellow senator from New York.
“A couple years ago, Bill and Hillary camped out in my state telling anybody who’d listen why they ought to vote against me. Tonight I’m here to return the favor,” McConnell said.
The normally buttoned-up McConnell brought out some of his sharpest rhetorical knives for his moment in the spotlight in Cleveland, already having seen convention-goers cheer wildly when other speakers called for Clinton to be jailed for mishandling classified information while she was secretary of State.
“She lied about her emails. She lied about her (email) server. She lied about Benghazi,” McConnell said.
McConnell expressed reservations about GOP nominee Donald Trump’s candidacy throughout the primary, but he showed no hesitation in declaring Clinton unfit for the presidency.
“There is a clear choice before us, and it is not Hillary,” he said. “You know what the next four years will look like with Hillary. And you know that if Hillary is president, we will continue to slide, distracted by the scandals that follow the Clintons like flies.”
There was also a flash of McConnell’s cutting humor.
“Friends, not since Baghdad Bob has there been a public figure with such a tortured relationship to the truth,” he said, referring to the amusingly mendacious spokesman for Saddam Hussein during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
McConnell, who takes pride in defending the U.S. Senate as an institution, painted a picture of how Congress would function differently with Trump in the White House. Instead of vetoes by President Obama, McConnell said, Trump would sign legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act, build the Keystone XL pipeline and defund Planned Parenthood.
But he praised bills passed with bipartisan support that Obama signed, including new K-12 school polices, longterm highway projects, and legislationto combat heroin and opioid abuse.
McConnell also promoted the importance of keeping the Senate in GOP hands, which could be threatened if Trump’s candidacy falters in November. “With Donald Trump in the White House, Senate Republicans will build on the work we’ve done and pass more bills into law than any Senate in years,” he said.
Scott Jennings, a Kentucky delegate and former McConnell adviser, said McConnell is known for taking the gloves off on the campaign trail back in Kentucky.
“He knows Hillary and all of her problems are dragging her down, and he believes in finding people’s weaknesses and just hammering them relentlessly,” Jennings said.
McConnell tells the truth about HRC 
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