They complement each other nicely.
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Senator Mitch McConnell and former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao are a GOP power couple.
Chao has starred in campaign ads defending McConnell’s record on women’s issues.
In November, McConnell voted against protections for interracial marriages despite his own.
Mitch McConnell, the US Senate Majority Leader, and Elaine Chao, the Secretary of Transportation, met through a mutual friend in the early 1990s. Not long after that, they wed — on Ronald Reagan’s birthday.
Together, they’re one of the most powerful couples on the US political scene.
A forthcoming book by the conservative journalist Peter Schweizer argues that McConnell and Chao may have softened their stance on China because that’s where Chao’s family does business — and where most of the couple’s wealth comes from.
Here are the highlights of McConnell and Chao’s relationship as Republican royalty:
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He grew up in Alabama and Kentucky and became a senator for Kentucky in 1985.
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She previously served as US Secretary of Labor from 2001 to 2009. Chao moved to the US from Taiwan at age eight and grew up in New York, per ABC News.
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According to The New York Times, Bloch and McConnell met in the 1960s. Bloch was married to Julia Chang Bloch, who was a mentor of Chao’s.
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“I don’t want to say that sparks flew,” Bloch told The New York Times, “because that’s not the way either of them is.”
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They chose that wedding date for three reasons, per The Washington Post: It’s Ronald Reagan’s birthday, it was just before Chao’s 40th birthday, and it was right before a one-week Senate recess.
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McConnell’s first wife, Sherrill Redmon, went on to become a feminist scholar. The two divorced in 1980.
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McConnell cooked once in a while and did the laundry; Chao was responsible for fixing things around the house, the Post reported.
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McConnell had polio as a child and finds backslapping painful, so Chao has stepped in to hug constituents in his stead.
“She very actively listens. She really pays attention and remembers details about people,” Kelly Westwood, head of the Kenton County women’s Republican group, told TIME in 2014. “She doesn’t see them for months and then says, ‘I know you sprained your arm, how’s it going?’ Or, ‘How’s you bid for city council going?’ She remembers everything.”
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Chao appeared in a 2014 campaign ad touting McConnell as a co-sponsor of the original Violence Against Women Act in 1991, which is accurate. But, as Talking Points Memo pointed out, McConnell also voted against the final legislation in 1993 and its reauthorizations in 2012 and 2013.
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After McConnell said the White House had “excessive expectations” for Congress, Trump took to Twitter to respond.
“Senator Mitch McConnell said I had ‘excessive expectations,’ but I don’t think so. After 7 years of hearing Repeal & Replace, why not done?” he wrote, per CNN. Trump tweeted again the following day: “Mitch, get back to work and put Repeal & Replace, Tax Reform & Cuts and a great Infrastructure Bill on my desk for signing. You can do it!”
Reporters asked Chao, who had attended an infrastructure meeting at Trump Tower, what she thought of Trump’s comments. She replied: “I stand by my man — both of them.”
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The Post reported that McConnell’s net worth increased due to an inheritance the couple received after Chao’s mother passed away in 2007.
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Chao’s father, James Chao, founded the shipping company Foremost Group in New York in 1964, and Schweizer says it’s been successful because of its close ties to the Chinese government.
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Bloch told The New York Times that Chao is a “tiger wife,” adding that she’s “made of titanium.”
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Trump unleashed a barrage of insults against McConnell in a Truth Social tirade accusing the Kentucky lawmaker of having a “death wish” and approving “trillions of dollars worth of Democrat sponsored bills” because he “hates Donald J, Trump.”
But the former president didn’t stop there: He proceeded to insult Chao, who served in Trump’s own administration, with a racist nickname, calling her McConnell’s “China loving wife, Coco Chow!”
Republican Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, along with some former Trump aides, denounced the post.
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The Respect for Marriage Act would codify same-sex and interracial marriage into federal law, requiring states to recognize marriages that were valid in the state where they were performed. McConnell was among 37 Republicans who voted against the bill, while 12 GOP Senators and all Democrats voted in support.
Chao was the first Asian woman to be appointed to a presidential cabinet.