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In late February 2026, Snopes readers asked us about videos of Internet users listening to an unidentified voice reading a purported transcript of a phone call between two Republican politicians, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
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On appeal, it is alleged that McConnell and McCarthy discussed bringing back slavery, creating state-funded religious schools, banning abortion, stopping immigration, and forced insemination of eighth graders.
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I have found no credible evidence that the transcript is authentic or that any such conversation between McConnell and McCarthy ever took place. The request is unfounded.
In February 2026, social media users wrote to Snopes on Instagram asking about videos of internet users listening to a audio clip (archived) of an alleged transcript of a phone call between Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The transcript is believed to have been a recording of the two men discussing measures to ban abortion, stop immigration, create state-funded religious schools, bring back slavery and impregnate eighth graders.
One Instagram user posted a video of themselves listening to the transcript he wrote in the text overlaying the clip, “Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy talk about bringing back slavery and making it mandatory for 8th graders to get pregnant to graduate.”
The complaint also circulated on X (archived), Facebook (archived), Bluesky (archived) and Reddit (archived).
We have found no evidence that the audio clip or transcript represents an authentic conversation between McConnell and McCarthy.
I couldn’t find any reputable news source reporting the “short” (archived, archived, archived, archived) transcript, which would have been extremely newsworthy if true. Although McConnell and McCarthy have both previously voted against federal protections for abortion, a shared view of their party, neither has publicly expressed views or plans that align with the other alleged policy points, such as slavery and state-sponsored religious education, that they were said to have discussed on the call.
We’ve reached out to representatives for McConnell and McCarthy to ask if the transcript read in the videos is authentic, and we await answers to our questions.
The full transcript of the alleged phone call, which an unidentified voice read, was as follows:
OK, so I got the transcripts.
Mitch: We need to bring slavery back. Those were the good times.
Kevin: How are we going to do that, we can’t do that.
Mitch: Black people won’t, but white people will.
Kevin: How are we going to enslave white people? It sounds ridiculous.
Mitch: We need to get rid of the separation of church and state. We must have state funded religious schools.
Kevin: I don’t see where you’re getting at.
Mitch: Those schools will have work programs for students in grades four through eight.
Kevin: Ah, I think I see where you’re going here. How will it work?
Mitch: We get the kids to be – pick all the produce as part of their work program to teach them the values of good, old-fashioned work and the goodness of God.
Kevin: I don’t think anyone is going to go for it.
Mitch: It’s all about nurturing, it starts in first grade and by fourth grade they’ll be ready to do it.
Kevin: But we already have people choosing the products.
Mitch: We have to finish the wall.
Kevin: That’s not going to happen.
Mitch: We’re finding better ways to get immigrants out of the United States.
Kevin: To duplicate ICE?
Mitch: Yeah.
Kevin: It’s going to be too busy, too hard, and we’ll be too busy trying to maintain that over long periods of time and generations.
Mitch: No, we’re getting rid of the abortion laws in the United States and making it mandatory for all female 8th graders to be inseminated in order to graduate.
Kevin: Oh, like replacing crops. Ha ha ha. Play on words.
Also Kevin: I will work on abortion ban, you work on state funded religious schools.
Mitch: We don’t have to either. Lindsey and I have been dealing with this with the new SCOTUS.
“Lindsey” was an apparent reference to Lindsey Graham, the senior senator from South Carolina and a fellow Republican. “SCOTUS” is a common abbreviation for the Supreme Court of the United States.
Versions of the alleged phone call shared online were sparse on details about when the conversation allegedly took place. Some said the recording was from July 2022, but they did not support this claim. The online posts did not contain additional information about who leaked the alleged call or why.
McConnell and McCarthy on abortion, slavery, school choice
As noted above, Snopes found no evidence that the alleged call between McConnell and McCarthy was real, nor did the call appear to reflect the politicians’ publicly expressed views.
McConnell and McCarthy both voted against the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would “prohibit government restrictions on the provision of and access to abortion services.” The bill was adopted House in 2021 but failed in Senate in 2022.
Since then, McConnell has said that abortion should be handled at the state rather than federal level. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a nonprofit organization that seeks to reduce and ultimately end abortion in the U.S., assessed both McConnell and McCarthy “A+”.
Both McConnell and McCarthy have historically opposed slavery, a central theme of the alleged appeal, on their social media accounts. McCarthy spoken (archived) of the “evils” of slavery in 2019. That same year, McConnell he wrote (archived) about “slavery stain our history” on X. However, McConnell has done it before oppose the idea of reparations for slavery, saying in 2019 that he did not think “reparations for something that happened 150 years ago, for which none of us living today are responsible, is a good idea.”
Finally, McConnell reportedly advocated for “state-funded religious schools” in the transcript of the phone calls. These schools, he allegedly argued, would be the basis for the renewed slavery project because the students would participate in work programs. In reality, McConnell from a historical point of view was a strong advocate of school choice, co-authoring an opinion piece piece in 2013, who advocated “Racial Choice – What’s the Best Way to Improve Schools”, a view that would seem to be at odds with supporting forced attendance at state-funded schools.
This wasn’t the first rumor Snopes investigated about either McConnell or McCarthy. For example, we have previously analyzed the claims that McConnell said he would not participate in 2020 election debates that included female moderators and that a photo showed authentically McCarthy looking at losing his vote for Speaker of the House.
Sources:
Glad, Evie. “Senate GOP Holds on to School Choice Push in Cut Aid Proposal.” Education Week, 8 Sept. 2020. www.edweek.org, https://www.edweek.org/education/senate-gop-sticks-to-school-choice-push-in-slimmed-down-relief-proposal/2020/09.
Chu, Judy. “HR3755 – Women’s Health Protection Act of 2021”. Congress.Gov, 6 Aug. 2021, https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3755.
Huffington Post: Op-Ed by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, Senators Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Tim Scott and Lamar Alexander: School Choice: Part of the Solution to Our Broken Education System | US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. 29 July 2013, https://www.help.senate.gov/chair/newsroom/news/huffington-post-op-ed-by-senate-republican-leader-mitch-mcconnell-sens-rand-paul-mike-lee-tim-scott-and-lamar-alexander-school-choice-broken-part-of-education-the-solution.
“McConnell Equates Slave Ownership of His Ancestors to Obama’s”. AP News, 9 July 2019, https://apnews.com/article/a7bab51c3e324ee5bbc55a48b683d1a7.
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“Rep. Kevin McCarthy | National Scorecard for Life” . SBA Pro-Life America, https://sbaprolife.org/representative/kevin-mccarthy. Accessed 24 July 2025.
“Senator Mitch McConnell | National Scorecard for Life”. SBA Pro-Life America, https://sbaprolife.org/senator/mitch-mcconnell. Accessed 24 July 2025.
@SenMcConnell. “With the Nation, Congress looks back to 1619 and remembers the size and scope of slavery’s stain on our history.” X, 10 Sept. 2019, https://x.com/SenMcConnell/status/1171443118610059267.
@SpeakerMcCarthy. “It is 400 years since the evils of slavery first appeared in America. X, 10 Sept. 2025, https://x.com/SpeakerMcCarthy/status/1171507398944518147.
US Senate: Roll call votes of the US Senate 117th Congress – Second Session. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1172/vote_117_2_00065.htm. Accessed 24 July 2025.
Washington, US Capitol Room H154 and DC 20515-6601 p:225-7000. “Roll Call 295 Roll Call 295, Bill Number: HR 3755, 117th Congress, First Session.” Office of the Clerk, US House of Representatives, 24 Sept. 2021, https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2021295.
Yang, Maya. “Mitch McConnell refuses to say whether he supports a national abortion ban in the US”. The Guardian, 28 April 2024. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/28/mitch-mcconnell-national-abortion-ban.
—. “Mitch McConnell refuses to say whether he supports a national abortion ban in the US”. The Guardian, 28 April 2024. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/28/mitch-mcconnell-national-abortion-ban.