Scott Wartman

swartman@nky.com

COVINGTON- U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Thursday he’s listening to the American people, even though he avoided the hundreds of protestors outside the Hotel Covington where he spoke.

“I’m sorry they feel that way,” McConnell told the press after his speech. “The fundamental problem is, they’re having a hard time getting over the election. They have every right to speak out. We’re all hearing them. I don’t think there’s any lack of understanding on how they feel about the issue.”

McConnell seemed to magically appear in the luncheon, and his entrance largely went unnoticed until he was already seated eating salad.

Two protesters managed to crash the event, a joint luncheon between the chambers of commerce of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.

One woman demanded he face constituents before being escorted out seconds later by police. She objected to McConnell’s assertion, also made during his speech, that the protesters were just angry over a lost election.

“Senator, we’re not protesting the election,” she said. “We’re protesting right-to-work. We're protesting losing our health care. We’re protesting election interference in White House. We’re protesting the fact to get in front of you, we have to pay dollars.”

Another man demanded McConnell do something for coal miners before he received the same treatment from police.

McConnell reacted to both with stony impassiveness.

“I didn’t realize there were multiple speakers,” McConnell said.

He didn’t face as much grilling like he did at a luncheon the day before in Lawrenceburg, Ky.

It was there that some critics made it into a luncheon with McConnell and fired questions at him during a Q&A. Those protesters were not escorted out. McConnell reacted with the same passive silence as he did in Covington.

McConnell found a sympathetic crowd inside the Covington hotel, some of whom yelled at the protesters to keep quiet.

McConnell did complain about people not listening to him. He likened being the Senate majority to being a groundskeeper at a cemetery.

“Everybody's under you and no one is listening,” McConnell said.

He praised President Donald Trump’s picks for cabinet, supreme court and staff. He said he doesn’t like his tweets.

Four things you need to know from McConnell's appearance in Covington:

McConnell ‘not opposed to obstructionist tactics to get you somewhere’

McConnell defended his blocking of President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court pick, saying the Democrats would have done the same thing.

He said he was in a hotel on vacation a year ago when he heard Justice Antonin Scalia died. He knew immediately he wasn’t going to let Obama appoint the justice.

“The first thing that came into my mind was, if the shoe was on the other foot,” McConnell said. “In other words, if the vacancy had been created in the middle of a hotly contested presidential election and there had been a Republican in the white house and a Democratic senate, there was not chance that vacancy would be filled.”

He didn’t know, however, that it would be Trump making the appointment. He said, at the time, he thought it would be Hillary Clinton.

“There’s no particular partisan advantage that I anticipated from that decision,” McConnell said. “Obviously, it turned out different.”

He then took aim at the Democrats delaying confirmation hearings of Trump appointees.

The difference is that the Democrat’s resistance here is futile and only delaying the inevitable, McConnell said.

“I’m not opposed to obstructionist tactics to get you somewhere,” McConnell said.

No promises on Brent Spence Bridge

McConnell said he hoped Democrats and Republicans would come together on repairing the nation’s transportation infrastructure.

He maintained his position that the federal government won’t likely pay the whole $2.5 billion tab for the Brent Spence Bridge renovation and construction.

Congress will likely create a pool of federal funds for transportation projects, such as the Brent Spence Bridge. But he doesn’t know how much that will be.

“I would strongly recommend you go after whatever that is,” McConnell said. “Whether that is enough to piece the whole deal together in the absence of some other funding stream is not clear.”

McConnell mum on changes to Obamacare

McConnell remained silent on what the Republicans will offer in replacement of the Affordable Care Act. He did, however, predict to reporters afterwards they would have something by the end spring.

“We need to do that as a commitment we made to the American people,” McConnell said.

No protesters allowed during Q&A

At the event, McConnell took only two questions, submitted to and read by Jill Meyer, president of the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber of Commerce, to prevent any questions from protesters. Meyer, however, said she liked to see the protests outside. Like the other 150 attendees of the luncheon, she had to wade through the crowd to get into the Hotel Covington.

“Protests are the American way of life,” Meyer said. “This is what makes the country great is that these people have the right and the energy. They know this kind of thing makes a difference.”