Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was reportedly shadowed by protesters for a second straight day on Wednesday, with at least 400 demonstrators outside a business luncheon — and a few unfriendly voices inside as well.
As he did on Tuesday when around 1,000 protesters turned out in Lawrenceburg, Ky., the senior senator from Kentucky called the protests "about as American as apple pie," the Louisville Courier-Journal reported.
On Wednesday, McConnell, attending a business luncheon at the Louisville Marrioitt East, was pounded with questions about Obamacare, according to McClatchy DC.
"He lives in a bubble," James Moore, the owner of a Louisville information technology consulting firm, told McClatchy DC afterward. "He hears what he wants to hear."
Inside, McConnell told members of the Jeffersontown Chamber of Commerce: "You might have noticed I have a large fan club outside. I assume most of them are Kentuckians," McClatchy DC reported.
One of them was Moore, who grew up in Jeffersontown, a city within Jefferson County that merged with Louisville more than a decade ago, the outlet reported.
He told McConnell that he and his employees had personally benefited from the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans want to repeal, and wanted assurances that the expansion of Medicaid under the healthcare law would still be available to poor Kentuckians, McClatchy DC reported.
"Well, I'm pleased to hear from somebody in business who's had a positive experience with the new health care law," McConnell replied. "I'm not sure if I've ever heard that before."
"I can put you in touch with a lot of others," Moore replied, with applause breaking out in parts of the room, McClatchy DC reported.
In another exchange about Obamacare with an unidentified woman, McConnell grew testy, insisting, "Let's just not have a debate here. Why don't you let the lady behind you ask her question?"
"We need a town hall," yelled someone in the audience, before McConnell was escorted out through the ballroom's kitchen to the next event, which was not open to the public, McClatchy DC reported.
The Courier-Journal reported that when McConnell was asked outside if he plans to hold a town hall, he shot back: "I thought we had a lot of the general public here, plus a whole lot of others today."
"And I'm perfectly open," he said. "I was yesterday. I will be again tomorrow in northern Kentucky."
McConnell is expected to attend another chamber of commerce luncheon Thursday in Covington, the newspaper reported.
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