Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has responded to the photo of several young men suggestively posing with a cardboard cutout of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“Team Mitch in no way condones any aggressive, suggestive, or demeaning act toward life-sized cardboard cutouts of any gender,” said McConnell campaign spokesman Kevin Golden.
The now-viral photo shows one of the seven youngsters mimicking choking Ocasio-Cortez, and another with his arm draped around her and appearing to go in for a kiss. The pic was posted to Instagram and captioned, “Break me off a piece of that.”
Golden insisted the men — all wearing “Team Mitch” T-shirts — aren’t affiliated with the Kentucky Republican.
“These young men are not campaign staff, they’re high schoolers and it’s incredible that the national media has sought to once again paint a target on their backs rather than report real, and significant news in our country,” Golden said.
Ocasio-Cortez called out McConnell on Twitter Monday night after the photo — taken Saturday at a political picnic in Fancy Farm, Kentucky — surfaced.
“Hey @senatemajldr – these young men look like they work for you,” the freshman congresswoman tweeted.
“Just wanted to clarify: are you paying for young men to practice groping & choking members of Congress w/ your payroll,” she asked, “or is this just the standard culture of #TeamMitch?”