It’s Mitch McConnell’s Swamp. We Just Live in It.

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News, Daily News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 12 June 2019

⏱️ 19 minutes

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Summary

If you walk to the Ohio riverfront from Owensboro’s City Hall, past the Courthouse, and the Museum of Science and History, you’ll get to McConnell Plaza. Mitch McConnell Plaza. For years, this town has been courting the Senate majority leader and, recently, its paid off. What does the relationship between his office and his wife, Elaine Chao’s, office have to do with the grants this small city is receiving? Are ethics being violated? Guest: Tanya Snyder, transportation reporter at POLITICO. Read her latest story on Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Tanya Snyder is a transportation reporter at Politico.
0:08.0	Yeah, I've been covering transportation for almost 10 years.
0:11.4	Well, nine years.
0:14.8	That's almost 10.
0:15.8	Nine is almost 10, it's true.
0:18.0	She works in Washington.
0:19.0	She has been tracking these grants the Department of Transportation gives out.
0:23.4	Who's applying?
0:24.8	Who's getting paid?
0:26.6	These programs are very, very popular.
0:29.8	Everybody's trying to get a piece of this pie.
0:31.6	And so there are many, many worthy projects that end up on the sidelines because they're
0:35.2	just isn't enough money to go around.
0:38.4	Recently, this one proposal caught her eye, a request for a few million dollars from
0:43.8	the town of Owensboro, Kentucky.
0:46.4	This request to improve some roads had been denied at first.
0:50.4	But then, right before Christmas, the money came through.
0:54.4	And so we're looking into what were the possible political considerations for giving this
1:00.4	grant to Kentucky that, in previous rounds, hadn't made the cut.
1:04.2	Yeah, I guess the question is, if you have five almost identical highway projects, how
1:10.2	do you choose the one that's going to get the millions of dollars?
1:14.2	Exactly.
	...

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