Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill (D), who faces a tough reelection bid this year, acknowledged Tuesday that she used a private plane for parts of a three-day tour of her state billed as an “RV tour” ahead of the midterms.
McCaskill confirmed a report from The Washington Free Beacon that she used the plane for part of her tour while dismissing the story as “election-year silliness” in statements to CNN and Politico, adding that she used the aircraft for adding stops to the tour and saying that it was never kept a secret.
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“The plane picked me up at the end of one day after I spent all day on the RV and it took me to my overnight location,” she said. “And the next day we used the plane to add a stop. But I was on the RV totally — two of the three days I was out.”
“I added some stops with the use of the plane, but I was on the RV so much that the broken drawer drove me crazy,” she added, saying that she “even lost an iPad around a corner on the RV.”
“Anybody could have followed me … they could have seen me when I got off the RV and when I got on the airplane … There was no effort to hide anything,” the senator told reporters.
In an emailed statement, the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s (NRSC) Bob Salera ripped McCaskill’s excuses as “elitist.”
“Claire McCaskill got caught flying around Missouri on her supposed RV tour, and now she’s starting in with the excuses for why she couldn’t be bothered to drive the highways with ‘normal people,'” Salera said.
McCaskill’s GOP challenger, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, also attacked the senator over her use of the plane in a series of tweets.
“I thought you sold the ‘damn plane.’ How about this: why don’t you give up using your luxury jet for the next 147 days? Just 147 days. You can do it. Come live like the rest of us. I dare you,” Hawley tweeted Thursday.
McCaskill faces a tough reelection fight in November as Democrats hope to protect her seat while retaking control of the Senate. Recent polls show McCaskill leading Hawley by single digits in the state.