Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell drew distance between himself and grassroots conservatives seeking a national abortion ban.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell drew distance between himself and grassroots conservatives seeking a national abortion ban.
McConnell (R-Ky.), 82, was evasive about whether he’d support a national ban on abortion and clarified that such legislation would be unlikely to clear the Senate.
“I don’t think we’ll get 60 votes in the Senate for any kind of national legislation. I think as a practical matter, it’s going to be sorted out at the state level,” McConnell said in an interview that aired on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday.
To clear the Senate, any legislation on abortion would need to overcome the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster.
The long-tenured Kentucky Senator was paramount to the appointment of three conservative Supreme Court justices under the Trump administration that paved the way to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, reversing nearly five decades of precedent on abortion rights.
When asked whether he’d back a 15-week ban similar to what Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has proposed, the carefully spoken senior Kentucky senator played it coy.
