Mitch McConnell will step down as Republican leader in the U.S. Senate this fall, but he plans to serve out the rest of his term through January 2027 as a “voice for peace through strength.”
That was McConnell’s message Tuesday in a speech to the Hopkinsville Rotary Club. Earlier in the day he was at Fort Campbell for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at renovated barracks, a project he said he supported by helping secure $135 million in the 2023 federal budget.
In his speech to Rotarians and their guests at the Memorial Building, McConnell, the longest serving Senate leader in history, said military defense against U.S. enemies “is the most important thing going in the world right now.”
He described his focus as particularly significant to the Hopkinsville audience because of the community’s proximity to Fort Campbell. The Army post is home to the 101st Airborne Division, and other units, which are vital to U.S. military defenses.
Investments in defense are cheaper than war, he said, adding, “Ronald Reagan had it right when he said you get peace through strength.”
He identified North Korea, China, Russia, Iran and Iran’s proxies as America’s greatest threats.
“They are all talking to each other. What they all have in common is their authoritarian regimes who hate democracy, hate Israel, hate the United States and everything that we stand for,” he said. “They are escalating efforts against us,” he said.
The senator did not refer to either of the presidential candidates by name, nor did he make a case for Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris. But if the “current administration” loses in November, he said it will be because of two critical errors — historic inflation brought on by $2.6 trillion in pandemic relief funding, and “chaos” at the southern border.
Regardless of who wins, McConnell said he will “spend an enormous amount of time” on foreign relations and defense … “because I haven’t been completely satisfied with either side on their attitude on how important this all is.”
“It’s a lot cheaper to prevent war than it is to have one, and yet the current administration has sent us four budgets in row for defense that doesn’t even keep up with inflation,” he said.
McConnell has been an advocate for U.S. allocations to support Ukraine’s defense since Russian’s invasion in February 2022.
“This is a just cause,” he said.
McConnell spoke for about 20 minutes. He did not take questions from audience members or reporters. After his address, he posed for photos with individuals.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
