Trump calls Elaine Chao ‘Coco Chow’ in latest attack on Mitch McConnell

October 3, 2022

Former President Donald Trump referred to Elaine Chao, the wife of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), as “Coco Chow” in a rant after the Senate and House of Representatives passed legislation to prevent a government shutdown.

The attack on McConnell and Chao came on Friday after President Joe Biden signed a bill before the midnight deadline that would keep the government funded through mid-December and prevent a partial shutdown.

“Is McConnell approving all of these trillions of dollars worth of Democrat-sponsored bills, without even the slightest bit of negotiation, because he hates Donald J. Trump, and he knows I am strongly opposed to them, or is he doing it because he believes in the fake and highly destructive green new deal, and is willing to take the country down with him? In any event, either reason is unacceptable,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, a social media platform created by Trump Media & Technology Group in 2021. “He has a DEATH WISH,” Trump continued. “Must immediately seek help and advise from his China loving wife, Coco Chow!”

As of Sunday morning, Trump’s post reportedly received 17,000 likes on Truth Social. In an interview with CNN, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) commented on Trump’s racist attack on Chao, saying, “It’s never, ever OK to be a racist.”

“I think you always have to be careful, you know, if you’re in the public eye… how you say things. You want to make sure you’re inclusive,” Scott said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I hope no one is racist. I hope no one says anything that’s inappropriate.”

In a separate CNN interview, conservative pundit Scott Jennings described Trump’s rant as “assassination instructions” against the Kentucky senator and blatant racism against his wife. He also said that “every Republican” should disavow the former president’s post as the attack is “not good for the party.”

“I mean, if you read that whole thing out loud, if you were on the street, and you heard someone muttering that on a street corner, you wouldn’t say, ‘Hmm, let’s hand this person the presidency or the Republican nomination for president,'” Jennings, a former McConnell aide, said.

“You would say, ‘Call 911. Because it sounds like an unhinged, deranged person has gotten loose and is out on the street and may be a danger to themselves and others.’”

The Friday rant was not the first time Trump has attacked McConnell and Chao, a Taiwanese-born Republican who moved to the U.S. when she was 8 years old and served as the secretary of transportation under the previous administration.

In a Truth Social post in August, Trump called Chao “crazy” and accused the Republican couple of getting “rich on [sic] China!”

Featured Image via Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 3.0) (left), Concordia (right)

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