McConnell after restaurant confrontation: ‘I will not be intimidated’

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Tuesday that he would “not be intimidated” after a recent confrontation at a Kentucky restaurant.

McConnell, in a Courier Journal op-ed, called the incident an example of the “antics of far-left protesters” and “extremist left-wing tantrums.”

“I’m not sure exactly what in my career suggests I would be easily swayed by such a spectacle. The reality is simple: I will not be intimidated,” McConnell wrote.

{mosads}McConnell and his wife, Treasury Secretary Elaine Chao, were confronted over the weekend at a restaurant in Louisville, Ky., by a man who yelled at the couple and berated them over their politics.

McConnell wrote that video footage of the incident did not “lay out all the facts,” including that the man entered the restaurant and “rushed at us.” 

“Acting alone, he began shouting, slamming his fists on our table, and causing a disruption as others tried to eat. At one point, he even grabbed my wife’s to-go box off of our table and threw it outside onto the ground,” McConnell added. 

Other diners shushed the protester or asked him to leave, and McConnell added in the op-ed that he appreciated “those who spoke up against the shameful behavior.” 

McConnell is one of several senators who have been publicly confronted since the fight over Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, including at their homes, at airports and in the Senate office buildings. 

Republicans have seized on the spike in confrontations, referring to protesters as the “mob” and characterizing the upcoming midterm election as choice between “jobs” and “mobs.”

McConnell added that the incident was not about him but a reflection of the “mob mentality that is being systematically fed and encouraged by the far left.”

But some Democratic senators, including Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), have also been confronted by protesters. Republican Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), who sometimes criticizes the president, said on Monday that he and his family had also received death threats from an individual “from the right.”