During a Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing partly focused on the DEA budget, Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said, “Without the people of America, Mexico, figuratively speaking, would be eating cat food out of a can and living in a tent behind an Outback.” This was tied to Kennedy’s suggestion that the United States invade Mexico to destroy drug cartels.
His statement was received with robust condemnation from all over the Americas: Mexico’s foreign affairs secretary called Kennedy “a profoundly ignorant man;” Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S., Esteban Moctezuma, released a video in which he reads the letter he sent to Kennedy, seeking to “enlighten” the Senator on the mutually beneficial relationship between the United States and Mexico. Specifically, the tens of billions of dollars in trade Louisiana has in surplus from Mexico, and the approximately tens of thousands of people it employs.
I don’t think that people of Louisiana field represented by the vulgar and racist words you used you are obliged to offer an apology to your citizens because what you asserted is not worthy of the state of Louisiana known for being a cultural Melting Pot giving the moral standards expressing your unfortunate statement.
Kennedy has spent the last couple of weeks dodging questions about his statement, and is refusing to apologize for his choice of words. But Kennedy’s statements were so racist and backward that even Fox News host Neil Cavuto tried to finesse some kind of apology out of him.
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