A February meeting between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and aides eventually touched on Ashley Judd’s history with depression and how it might play in the GOP leader’s re-election campaign next year, according to an audio tape obtained by David Corn of Mother Jones.
The meeting, which took place on February 2, was led by an unidentified aide, who unveiled some of the oppo research the McConnell team had dug up on Judd. Judd announced last month that she will not challenge McConnell next year.
After highlighting the Hollywood star’s support of President Barack Obama and her positions on social issues such as abortion rights, the aide addressed her mental health. The actress and activist has spoken openly about her history with depression, even admitting to bouts with suicidal thoughts as a sixth grade student — an area of Judd’s biography that the aide seemed willing to broach.
“She’s clearly, this sounds extreme, but she is emotionally unbalanced. I mean it’s been documented,” the aide said. “Jesse can go in chapter and verse from her autobiography about, you know, she’s suffered some suicidal tendencies. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the ’90s.”
Read all of Corn’s piece and listen to other clips from the meeting here.
