Trump blasts McConnell’s Democratic challenger: She ‘compared my election to September 11th’

President Trump on Tuesday evening hammered Amy McGrath, the newly announced Democratic challenger to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) in Kentucky, slamming her for comparing his election to 9/11.

“Democrats are coming after our great Kentucky Senator, Mitch McConnell, with someone who compared my election to September 11th,” Trump tweeted Tuesday. 

“Why would Kentucky ever think of giving up the most powerful position in Congress, the Senate Majority Leader, for a freshman Senator with little power in what will hopefully be the minority party. We need Mitch in the Senate to Keep America Great!!” he added. 

….Why would Kentucky ever think of giving up the most powerful position in Congress, the Senate Majority Leader, for a freshman Senator with little power in what will hopefully be the minority party. We need Mitch in the Senate to Keep America Great!!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 10, 2019

McGrath, who narrowly lost a House race in the Bluegrass State last year, has lamented Trump’s White House victory, saying it felt similar to the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. 

{mosads}“And that morning I woke up like somebody had sucker punched me,” she said at a November 2017 candidate forum, according to the Louisville Courier Journal. “I felt like, ‘what has just happened to my country?’ The only feeling I can describe that’s any close to it was the feeling I had after 9/11.”

McGrath defended her past remarks during an appearance Tuesday on CNN while acknowledging that “folks might be upset” by her past comparison.

“What I was talking about was the fact that, you know, nobody really expected President Trump to win. And I was talking also about the entire 2016 cycle,” she said, pointing to rhetoric about “fake news” and the “labeling of each other” during the election.

McGrath announced her Senate bid against McConnell earlier Tuesday, arguing that the longtime GOP leader has helped drive the dysfunction on Capitol Hill.

McConnell “was elected a lifetime ago” and has “bit by bit, year by year, turned Washington into something we all despise,” she said. 

Kevin Golden, a spokesman for McConnell’s reelection campaign, jabbed McGrath as an “extreme liberal who is far out of touch with Kentuckians.”

“Comparing President Trump’s election to 9/11, endorsing a government takeover of healthcare, and calling the wall ‘stupid’ is a heckuva platform that we will be delighted to discuss over the next sixteen months,” Golden said in a statement.

McConnell has emerged as one of the Trump administration’s staunchest allies in the Senate, helping pass legislation to support the White House’s agenda and ushering through Trump’s judicial nominees, including two Supreme Court picks.