WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Sunday said he and a select group of Republican congressmen have agreed to discuss the nation’s gun violence epidemic with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) and other Democratic lawmakers after the August recess.
“We are going to do it. Absolutely,” Senator McConnell told WHAS 840, a Kentucky news radio station. “I’ll have my secretary pencil something in as soon as we return to Washington.” Without providing a specific date, McConnell said the bipartisan talks would take place at a Starbucks coffee shop located a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol. “This will be an informal discussion, but a real discussion nonetheless,” Mr. McConnell told the station.
Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) have also agreed to take part in the upcoming talks on the gun violence epidemic, with Senator Graham serving as a “semi-official” mouthpiece for President Donald J. Trump, who does not drink coffee.
Florida senator Marco Rubio, who, in 2017, vowed never to set foot in a Starbucks again after the company “used holiday cups to launch a covert campaign propagating the gay agenda,” told Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson that he intends to bring a gun to Starbucks “for my own personal safety.” When pressed, Mr. Rubio declined to speculate on the duration of the conversation but said it would “likely depend on how long a line there is.”
A spokesperson for Senator Mitch McConnell’s re-election campaign issued a statement Monday morning defending the senate majority leader’s decision to hold the upcoming discussion on gun violence at a coffee shop rather than a conference room at the U.S. Capitol, saying the Kentucky senator recently received a $10,000 Starbucks gift card from the NRA.
