Lynne Patton, a member of the Trump administration who has spoken openly of her battle with cocaine addiction, told Bold TV she disagreed with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on his endorsement of the “Cocaine Mitch” campaign.
McConnell has been selling bright red t-shirts with the graphic of a male figure outline behind a cocaine sprinkling, with the caption “MITCH” on his campaign website for his 2020 re-election. That poster is a spoof of a similar one for the Netflix series “Narcos.” On McConnell’s campaign site, “TEAM MITCH” and “CARTEL MEMBER” are emblazoned on the back for $35-$2800. The shirts helped a fundraising push on Wednesday to re-elect the senator and the hashtag #CocaineMitch was trending on Twitter on Thursday. The term “Cocaine Mitch” was reportedly coined by Don Blankenship, a former political opponent, after a false allegation of drugs were found in a cargo ship owned by the family of Elaine Chao, President Trump’s transportation secretary and McConnell’s wife.
“I think depending on what day it is, whether or not Mitch McConnell is a friend of the president, but as somebody who has personally struggled with cocaine addiction, I don’t think that that is funny or appropriate, I wouldn’t endorse that on any side of the aisle,” Patton told Bold TV today.
Due to high popularity, the McConnell campaign have also started producing bumper stickers as well as shirts.
“It’s almost like making drugs cool, and they’re not,” Patton said. “Not to sound like Nancy Reagan, but drugs are not cool, just so you know.”
Patton is not the only one displeased by the campaign slogan, anti-drugs campaigners have expressed the insensitivity of the campaign. As an African-American woman, Democrats have accused Patton of being exploited by Republicans in a show of tokenism, a notion that Patton said she rejects. Patton is a prominent face of the Trump administration’s Department Of Housing and Urban Development who has garnered significant attention for spending a month in various public housing projects throughout New York.
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