McConnell applauds shipping migrants to blue states as ‘a good idea’

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday applauded Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) latest move of shipping migrants to an area near President Biden’s beach house in Rehoboth, Del., and other blue states in the Northeast as “a good idea.” 

McConnell and other Senate Republicans are lining up behind DeSantis’s strategy of sending migrants —mostly from Venezuela — to Biden’s home state and Martha’s Vineyard, the upscale island off the coast of Massachusetts where former President Obama owns a $12 million vacation house.  

They are also supporting Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) decision to send migrants to Vice President Harris’s official residence in Washington, D.C., and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s record of sending nearly 2,000 migrants to the nation’s capital.  

“There’s been a good deal of talk about what some of the governors have done to transport illegal immigrants up to other parts of the country. I personally thought it was a good idea,” McConnell said.  

The latest development came Tuesday, when the White House said it was aware of reports that DeSantis had sent a flight of migrants to an airport 20 miles from Biden’s vacation house in Delaware.  

DeSantis said at a news conference that he couldn’t confirm the reports.  

McConnell defended DeSantis and the other GOP governors by arguing that Republican-governed border states still have to deal with many more migrants who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border on a daily basis than Democratic states such as New York, Massachusetts and Illinois.  

“If you added up all of the illegals who have been taken to Chicago or Washington or Martha’s Vineyard, it would be fewer than people down in Texas have to deal with on a daily basis,” he said.  

He added that it’s pretty clear that in the upcoming midterm elections, voters are focused on inflation, rising crime around the country and “the open borders.”  

McConnell took a shot at Harris for claiming in a recent interview that the southern border is secure.  

“When the vice president says the border is secure, it’s absurdly incorrect. And I think these are the kinds of things the American people would look to this administration for some solutions on and so far they are lacking,” he said.  

McConnell defended the bussing and flying of migrants to liberal enclaves around the country earlier Tuesday when he delivered his opening remarks on the Senate floor.  

He said the governors of Texas and Arizona are now giving “some Democrat-run states and cities just a tiny, tiny taste of what border communities have been enduring, literally, for years.”