Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Monday told the audience at an event held by the Danville-Boyle County Chamber of Commerce in Kentucky that he would not discuss Donald Trump.
“If any of you are here are thinking I’m going to elaborate on the presidential debate, let me disabuse you of that notion,” he said, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader. “If you’re interested in anything else, please stay. If you’re interested in the presidential election, you might as well get up and leave, because I don’t have any observations to make on that.”
“In my job as majority leader of the Senate I’ve found that my observations, no matter where I make them, are immediately sort of spun around the world and I don’t have anything to add on the presidential race today,” he added, according to the Associated Press.
The majority leader told the crowd at another point during the event that he would not talk about Trump “even though that’s what I know you all wanted me to talk about today,” according to the AP. He also asked a woman to stop recording the event at one point, the AP reported.
Following the release of a 2005 tape in which Trump can be heard making vulgar comments about women, McConnell released a statement condemning the GOP nominee’s “repugnant and unacceptable” comments. But he has stayed quiet since then.
McConnell has been advising lawmakers and candidates on how to navigate the race following the revelations about Trump’s crude 2005 remarks, according to Politico.
