Sen. Mitch McConnell cites his immigrant wife in response to Trump’s ‘poison the blood’ gibee

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell invoked Tuesday his wife’s name in a rare pushback against former President Donald Trump‘s claim that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of Americans.

McConnell (R-Ky.) suggested Trump is using the xenophobic gibe to rile up his far right-wing supporters in the GOP presidential primary campaign.

“It strikes me: That didn’t bother him when he appointed Elaine Chao [as] secretary of transportation,” McConnell told CNN.

Chao, an immigrant from Taiwan, is McConnell’s wife and was Trump’s transportation secretary for almost four years until she resigned after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol in the dying days of Trump’s presidency.

Trump has repeatedly attacked McConnell and his wife in recent years, turning on the top GOP leader despite the clear political need for a party’s de facto chief to work with congressional leaders from their own party.

The feud only escalated after Jan. 6 when Chao said her conscience forced her to step down.

Trump, who already was deriding McConnell as the “old crow,” gave Chao a racist nickname mocking her Asian name.

But McConnell has generally sought to avoid hitting back at Trump, even when he pokes fun at Chao, because the former president remains by far the most powerful figure in the GOP.

He prides himself on not ever mentioning Trump by name. It’s not clear why the “poison the blood” remark apparently triggered McConnell.

The “poison the blood” attack amounts to a new low for Trump as he seeks to tap into widespread anger and fear over rising rates of illegal immigration at the southern border with Mexico.

Historians note that the phrase dates from the Nazi era when Adolf Hitler used it to convince Germans that Jews and other minority groups posed a threat to their long-term survival.

Other Senate Republicans denounced Trump’s xenophobic remarks.

“My grandfather was an immigrant, so I don’t agree with that sentiment,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.).

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) called Trump’s comments “unhelpful rhetoric.”

Despite the pushback, Republicans are eager to talk as much as possible about illegal immigration because polls give President Biden rock-bottom low approval ratings on handling the border.

GOP lawmakers have refused to pass urgent aid to Ukraine and Israel unless the issues are passed together with completely unrelated demands for immigration policy changes.

The White House apparently blinked in that fight and has opened up negotiations on linking the issues. But Republicans say no agreement is near, suggesting that they want to wring more concessions and inflict maximum political damage on Biden instead of cutting a deal to break the logjam in Congress.

Democrats want to negotiate a broader comprehensive immigration reform plan that might trade some kind of path to citizenship for millions of immigrants already in the country in exchange for tougher measures aimed at stopping new migrants from coming to the U.S.

But Republicans are unwilling to agree to what they call “amnesty” for undocumented immigrants, making any deal elusive.