Sen. Cory Booker Cory Anthony Booker3 reasons why Biden is misreading the politics of court packing Bipartisan praise pours in after Ginsburg's death DHS opens probe into allegations at Georgia ICE facility MORE (D-N.J.) said Wednesday that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellTrump 'no longer angry' at Romney because of Supreme Court stance On The Money: Anxious Democrats push for vote on COVID-19 aid | Pelosi, Mnuchin ready to restart talks | Weekly jobless claims increase | Senate treads close to shutdown deadline The Hill's Campaign Report: Trump faces backlash after not committing to peaceful transition of power MORE’s (R-Ky.) comments this week in opposition to reparations for descendants of slaves displayed a “tremendous amount of ignorance.”

“You hear things like that, and talking about somehow electing Barack Obama Barack Hussein ObamaObama warns of a 'decade of unfair, partisan gerrymandering' in call to look at down-ballot races Quinnipiac polls show Trump leading Biden in Texas, deadlocked race in Ohio Poll: Trump opens up 6-point lead over Biden in Iowa MORE was tantamount to reparations. Just leaving that alone — it’s hard to do that, frankly,” Booker told Sirius XM host Joe Madison Wednesday.

ADVERTISEMENT

“I think that one of the big strikes of ignorance that he says there is that somehow this is about a compensation, in other words, writing a check to somebody and reducing the urgency of this conversation to simply that,” added Booker, who has introduced legislation to study the issue.

The senator and presidential candidate also noted that advocates for reparations believe they are necessary to counteract not only slavery itself but racist policies that maintained white supremacy after slavery was abolished, such as segregation and housing discrimination.

“The goal for me in pushing this effort is to make sure we get to the end that we seek, which is equality of opportunity, a leveling of economic playing fields, health playing fields, housing playing fields,” Booker said.

In his initial comments, McConnell called slavery “something that happened 150 years ago” and suggested that the U.S. has "tried to deal with" it through civil rights legislation and the election of former President Obama.

Author Ta-Nehisi Coates, who joined Booker Wednesday in testifying about reparations at a House hearing, also blasted McConnell’s comments during his testimony.

“[McConnell] was alive for the redlining of Chicago and the looting of black homeowners of some $4 billion. Victims of that plunder are very much alive today. I am sure they'd love a word with the majority leader,” Coates said Wednesday.