Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and her husband, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell remains silent when former President Donald Trump slams them online, but on Thursday she responded after her ex-boss repeated a racist nickname he has used for her before.
Elaine Chao responds to Donald Trump’s racist taunt
When asked about it during a televised interview with CNN, Chao called it a “racist taunt” and said he’s “trying to get a rise out of us.”
“He says all sorts of outrageous things, and I don’t make a point of answering any one of them,” said Chao, who was on CNN talking about Southwest Airlines’ widespread and disastrous cancellations of flights this week.
Trump publicly and repeatedly has made racist and antisemitic comments targeting various individuals and communities over the years — before, during and after his tenure in the White House.
Chao moved to the U.S. from Taiwan with her family when she was a child, and she has worked for multiple Republican presidents, including Trump. She served in his cabinet for almost the entirety of his four-year administration, but resigned at the very end of his presidency after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
