Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that without a president “with a different point of view about Planned Parenthood,” defunding the abortion industry giant would have to wait until 2017.
“The president’s made it very clear he’s not going to sign any bill that includes defunding of Planned Parenthood, so that’s another issue that awaits a new president, hopefully with a different point of view about Planned Parenthood,” McConnell said Monday on Kentucky station WYMT’s Issues and Answers.
McConnell said that funding the federal government is his top priority when he returns to Washington, D.C., next week. He added that he will work with the White House on a budget that would keep the government funded past September 30.
“The Senate Democrats have a big enough number to prevent us from doing things,” McConnell continued. “They prevented us from doing any of the bills that appropriate money for the government, thereby forcing a negotiation when we go back in after Labor Day, which I’ll be engaged in with the administration and others to try to sort out how much we’re going to spend and where we’re going to spend it.”
In response to a viewer question about defunding the nation’s largest abortion provider, McConnell replied, “We just don’t have the votes to get the outcome that we’d like. I would remind all of your viewers: the way you make a law in this country, the Congress has to pass it and the president has to sign it.”
McConnell’s statement comes as the ninth undercover video produced by the Center for Medical Progress is released. The videos have exposed the taxpayer funded abortion business’ practices of harvesting the body parts of aborted babies for sale on the open market.
Sen. Ted Cruz was a co-sponsor of the Senate bill to defund Planned Parenthood earlier in August, but the vote for cloture was 53-46, which fell well shy of the 60 votes needed to end debate and proceed to a vote.
The 2016 contender has said that he would do everything within his power to ensure a measure to defund Planned Parenthood is attached to legislation to fund the government.
As Breitbart News reported last week, Cruz told thousands of evangelical pastors on a conference call that, when it comes to the funding of Planned Parenthood, both Democrats and Republicans are happy with an “empty show vote” that “has no teeth and no consequence,” one that is not tied to an appropriations bill to fund the federal government.
“We can expect President Obama and many of the congressional Democrats to cry loudly that if Congress uses its authority, Congress will be quote ‘shutting down the government,’” Cruz said, according to The Washington Post. “That, of course, is nonsense.”
Lila Rose, president of pro-life organization Live Action, said in a statement sent to Breitbart News:
The undercover videos by Center for Medical Progress and the recent letter to Congress by Planned Parenthood further add proof to the overwhelming body of evidence that Planned Parenthood, while collecting tax dollars, broke the law when they harvested and sold baby organs and changed medical procedures to harvest the most profitable organs. Planned Parenthood must be defunded immediately, and political leaders should reject and return all campaign donations from this lawless enterprise.
Similarly, in an interview with Breitbart News last week, ForAmerica president David Bozell said, “These folks are caught on video tape eight times now, embarking on a criminal enterprise that involves cutting off the heads of children and cutting their faces off to get to their brains to sell them for money.”
“If the Republican Party can’t stand up against that, can’t protect the American taxpayer against funding that, they are of no use to us,” he added.
McConnell said that Republicans must have a 2016 nominee who can win states considered to be “purple.”
“Whoever our nominee is is going to have to appeal in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Florida, Colorado, Nevada — those states that tend to go back and forth,” the majority leader said. “Looking at the polling data in those key states, I think people are ready to go in a different direction. We just have to nominate somebody that they find appealing.”
The Senate majority leader defended his record as one who has “made substantial progress in getting the Senate back to work.”
“I’m sorry that it’s not noticed by more people, but that’s a fact,” he said.
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