Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has picked up his fair share of nicknames over the years, and the Republican from Kentucky can now add "Moscow Mitch" to the list.

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough gave McConnell the nickname during a Friday segment on his "Morning Joe" show for blocking two measures aimed at preventing foreign interference in U.S. elections.

The nickname also was trending Friday as a hashtag on Twitter as news reports about the rant and McConnell's Senate actions mounted.

McConnell blocked the bills Thursday, a day after former special counsel Robert Mueller appeared before two House committees and reiterated how his 448-page report found the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

Mueller also warned that Russia is planning to interfere in the 2020 election "as we sit here."

Scarborough accused McConnell of "aiding and abetting (Russian President) Vladimir Putin’s ongoing attempts to subvert American democracy" and called McConnell's actions "un-American."

"How can Moscow Mitch so willingly turn a blind eye not only this year to what his Republican chairman of the (intelligence) committee is saying, to what Robert Mueller is saying, to what the FBI director is saying, to what the DNI (director of national intelligence) is saying, to what the CIA is saying, to what the United States military intel community is saying?” Scarborough asked.

"How can Moscow Mitch keep denying that Vladimir Putin continues to try to subvert American democracy?"

See also:Mueller says he wants the report to be 'a flag' to those with responsibility

After the House passed a bill that requires the use of paper ballots and includes funding for the Election Assistance Commission, McConnell objected Thursday to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's request for consent to pass the measure.

Under Senate rules, any senator can request consent to pass a bill, but any senator can also object.

McConnell claimed Schumer, D-N.Y., was trying to pass “partisan legislation,” The Hill reported.

The bill passed the House 225-184, with one Republican member voting for it.

Robert Steurer, a spokesman for McConnell, told the Courier Journal that McConnell "has a long and strong record of fighting for fair and effective voting procedures, from co-authoring the Help America Vote Act to supporting $380 million for states to enhance their voting systems before the 2018 midterm election."

Steurer noted that Kentucky received nearly $6 million of the $380 million doled out to states for voting system enhancements before the 2018 midterms, and he added the Senate "has already passed almost a dozen other measures that actually have strong bipartisan support to help secure elections."

Steurer also referred to McConnell's remarks Thursday on the Senate floor.

"It is very important that we maintain the integrity and security of our elections in our country. Any Washington involvement in that task needs to be undertaken with extreme care ... and on a thoroughly bipartisan basis. Obviously this legislation is not that," McConnell said. "This is just a highly partisan bill from the same folks who spent two years hyping up a conspiracy theory about President Trump and Russia, and who continue to ignore this administration’s progress at correcting the Obama administration’s failures on this subject in the 2016 election."

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Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., also asked for consent to pass legislation that would require candidates, campaign officials and their family members to notify the FBI of assistance offers from foreign governments.

McConnell also objected to the second measure.

In addition to McConnell's floor remarks, Steurer referred to bills the Senate has passed under McConnell's leadership that relate to election security.

Those bills, Steurer noted, include measures that deny foreign nationals entry to or deport them from the U.S. for violating election laws, make the hacking of voting systems a federal crime and require reports from various federal agencies on cyberattacks and threats to election infrastructure.

As Scarborough alluded to in his Friday tirade against McConnell, FBI Director Christopher Wray and several Republican officials have echoed Mueller's findings on Russian meddling.

"The Russians are absolutely intent on trying to interfere with our elections through foreign influence in particular," Wray told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, one day before Mueller's testimony outlining the findings of the two-year investigation into Russian election interference.

Elections:Broad agreement on election threats but not on what to do about them

A new assessment of election security released Thursday by the Senate Intelligence Committee — which is chaired by Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C. — found Russia had successfully "exploited the seams between federal authorities ... and protection for the states" in 2016.

A redacted version of Mueller's report, released in April, concluded that President Donald Trump's campaign had not "coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities.”

While Mueller's report did not make a conclusion on potential obstruction of justice by Trump, it "found multiple acts by the president that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations."

Trump and his allies have called Mueller's investigation a "witch hunt" that actually exonerated the president.

"Case closed," McConnell said on the Senate floor in May, regarding Mueller's finding that Trump's team did not conspire with the Russians.

Mueller dismissed the "witch hunt" and exoneration claims Wednesday.

Scarborough's "Moscow Mitch" nickname is not the only Russia-related moniker given to McConnell recently.

A new billboard along Interstate 65 in Hart County, Kentucky, has a photo of McConnell next to the words, "Putin's Mitch."

See also:Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul team up on a bill to help bourbon producers

WNKY reported a political action committee paid for the sign and is trying to raise attention to a Russian company that is investing millions of dollars into a planned Braidy Industries aluminum mill in Eastern Kentucky.

The U.S. previously placed sanctions on the Russian company, Rusal, and its co-owner Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch with ties to Putin.

Trump lifted the sanctions on Rusal this past January, a move that McConnell supported.

Reach Billy Kobin at bkobin@courierjournal.com or 502-582-7030. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/subscribe.