Mitch McConnell's hypocrisy on bold display after he tells CEOs to 'stay out of politics'

Republicans have a long history of praising corporate CEOs as "job creators" and welcoming their donations. But in 2021, it isn't uncommon for Trumpified Republicans to rail against corporate America, especially Big Tech. And with Delta Airlines and other Georgia-based corporations speaking out against the state's new voter suppression law, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is complaining that corporate CEOs need to "stay out of politics." In light of how cozy McConnell has been with corporate America over the years, he is being called out for his hypocrisy.

At a news conference in Kentucky on April 5, McConnell told reporters, "My advice to the corporate CEOs of America is to stay out of politics. Don't pick sides in these big fights…. Corporations will invite serious consequences if they become a vehicle for far-left mobs to hijack our country from outside the constitutional order."

Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp recently signed into law a voter suppression bill that makes voting more difficult in a variety of ways, from making absentee voting harder to making it a crime to give food or water to someone waiting in line to vote. The outcry against the bill has been vehement, especially in heavily Democratic Atlanta — and major Georgia-based companies that have been speaking out against it range from Delta to Coca-Cola. Major League Baseball has pulled its 2021 All-Star Game out of the Peach State in response to the law, which President Joe Biden has slammed as "Jim Crow in the 21^st Century."

At the April 5 news conference, McConnell complained, "I found it completely discouraging to find a bunch of corporate CEOs getting in the middle of politics."

This is a total flip-flop coming from McConnell, who fought hard for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (which lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%) and praised the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC — which defined corporate political donations as free speech and declared that corporations had a right to donate as much as they wanted to candidates. McConnell, over the years, stressed that corporations had every right to protect their interests through lobbying and donations.

Politico's Bill Scher, on Twitter, noted what McConnell had to say about Citizens United:

Here are some other reactions to McConnell's flip-flop on corporate participation in politics: