McConnell had been accused of racism for saying that “African American” voters cast ballots at similar rates to “Americans.” The comment implied that Black voters are somehow not American and underscored the concerns of voting rights advocates that Republicans in state legislatures across the country are explicitly seeking to disenfranchise Black voters.

McConnell on Wednesday had said that “African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.” McConnell explained on Friday that he should have said the word “all” before “Americans.”.

He also said he helped organize a civil rights march at Kentucky’s state Capitol and was present when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

When asked what he would say to those who had been offended by his words, McConnell said he would discuss his record relating to voting rights, and brought up his role as a mentor to Kentucky’s Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who is Black and one of many Republicans who came to the minority leader’s defense this week.

Federal legislation like the kind he and other GOP lawmakers blocked on Wednesday also wasn’t necessary, he said, because the Voting Rights Act was still law and concerns over specific state voting laws could be worked out through the court system.

The part of the bill named after Lewis, the late civil rights leader and Democratic congressman from Georgia, would have updated the Voting Rights Act and was a direct response to a Supreme Court ruling that weakened the law’s oversight of states with a history of discriminating against Black and other minority voters