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McConnell did not say if he knew about his family’s ownership of slaves before the report was published Monday.
Obama’s office declined to comment on McConnell’s remarks Tuesday.
More recently, Obama told author Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic in 2016 that he would rather invest in a more widespread anti-poverty program than a specifically reparations program, making an argument about the political reality of such a proposal.
“So to restate it: I have much more confidence in my ability, or any president or any leader’s ability, to mobilize the American people around a multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment to help every child in poverty in this country than I am in being able to mobilize the country around providing a benefit specific to African Americans as a consequence of slavery and Jim Crow,” Obama said in the interview. “Now, we can debate the justness of that. But I feel pretty confident in that assessment politically.”
“I don’t think reparations for something that happened 150 years ago for whom none of us currently living are responsible is a good idea,” the Kentucky Republican told reporters in response to a question about whether reparations should be paid or a public apology should be made by Congress or the President.
“We’ve tried to deal with our original sin of slavery by fighting a civil war, by passing landmark civil rights legislation. We elected an African American president,” he said.
CNN’s Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.
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