‘Keep your wallets open and your mouths shut’: Critics mock McConnell for mixed message to business in Georgia row

Top Senate Republican blasted for telling CEOs to stay out of politics after fighting for decades to allow corporations to donate unlimited amounts of money to campaigns

Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was mocked for his statements on corporations wading into political issues after he said that the decision of entities like MLB, Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines to distance themselves from a restrictive new Georgia voting law was "stupid".

Mr McConnell said during a press conference in his home state of Kentucky on Monday: “I found it completely discouraging to find a bunch of corporate CEOs getting in the middle of politics.

“My advice to the corporate CEOs of America is to stay out of politics. Don’t pick sides in these big fights.”

However, he added that he still wants corporations to give money to political campaigns. He said: "I'm not talking about political contributions. Most of them contribute to both sides, they have political action committees, that's fine, it's legal, it's appropriate, I support that."

The Lincoln Project tweeted about Mr McConnell's statements: "Translation: 'Give us your money but don't hold us accountable for what we do with it'."

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Adam Jentleson, who served as Deputy Chief of Staff to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, wrote that Mr McConnell’s message to corporate America was “incredible”.

Jentleson, whose new book on the Senate filibuster, Kill Switch, addresses Mr McConnell’s attitudes towards corporate donations, wrote: “An incredible statement. McConnell’s message to corporate America: keep your wallets open but your mouths shut.”

Slate writer Mark Joseph Stern wrote: "The landmark 2003 Supreme Court case McConnell v. FEC had that name because Mitch McConnell himself filed a lawsuit against federal laws that limited corporations’ ability to spend money influencing elections."

Journalist Judd Legum tweeted: "Mitch McConnell took $4.3 million from corporations over the last 5 years to fund his campaigns and now he wants corporations to 'stay out of politics'."

He added: "McConnell isn't just SUGGESTING corporations shut up about voting rights. He's THREATENING corporations. McConnell says there will be ‘serious consequences’ for corporations that don't just silently send checks."

Speaking to MSNBC, Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said of the Republicans’ new line of criticism against corporations: "It is just extraordinary ... Imagine that after $1 trillion of tax breaks to large corporations, to lowering the corporate tax rate, after protecting the pharmaceutical industry from charging us by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, etc, etc, Mitch McConnell and his friends are very upset that corporations are now saying that it is an outrage that in Georgia, they are trying to destroy democracy and make it harder for people of colour and low-income people to vote."

During his press conference, Mr McConnell said it was "jaw-dropping to see powerful American institutions not just permit themselves to be bullied, but join in the bullying themselves".

He added: “Americans do not need or want big business to amplify disinformation or react to every manufactured controversy with frantic leftwing signalling.

“From election law to environmentalism to radical social agendas to the second amendment, parts of the private sector keep dabbling in behaving like a woke parallel government.

"Corporations will invite serious consequences if they become a vehicle for far-left mobs to hijack our country from outside the constitutional order.”

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that they hadn't asked corporations to take "specific actions," adding: "That’s not our focus here".

She said: “Our focus is on continuing to convey that it’s important that voting is easier, not harder, that when there are laws in place that make it harder, we certainly express an opposition to those laws.”