Sen. Mark Kirk Catches Heat For 'Bro With No Ho' Comment

By Rachel Cromidas in News on Jun 11, 2015 9:50PM

Are you a "bro with no ho?" What does that even mean? Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Illinois) sure seems to think fellow U.S. senator Lindsey Graham is.

Kirk apparently got caught behind a live microphone he didn't know was on during a Senate Appropriations Committee meeting this morning, while telling a joke about Graham's life as a single politician and the possibility that he could become the first U.S. president without a first lady.

As the Huffington Post first reported, Kirk can be heard in an audio recording from the meeting saying, “I’ve been joking with Lindsey ... He’s going to have a rotating first lady. He’s a bro with no ho." Listen for yourself below starting at the 20 second mark:

And America shakes its collective head.

In a comment to the news outlet, Kirk’s office said the senator was “joking around with his colleagues.” We didn't realize Kirk worked in a frat house.

The Washington Post rightly poked fun at Kirk in a piece Thursday afternoon by pondering the origin of Kirk's strange statement, which is seemingly a bastardization of the misogynistic refrain "bros before hos" and the homophobic "no homo,"—but with neither connotation. As the reporter quickly found, no one has searched that exact phrase on Google (at least before today) and it wasn't even in Urban Dictionary.

And it's definitely not a Chicago thing:

We asked people from Chicago if they'd heard the term.

"'What we say on the streets?'," said Jeff Ruby, chief dining critic of Chicago magazine. "I can't imagine what streets he's talking about. Maybe while he was in the Navy? I have never heard the phrase before in Chicago. So maybe I'm not hanging out on the streets enough."

Jordan, who lives in Woodlawn, replied over Twitter, "Nope. Is that a riff on 'bros before hos' that everybody has heard of?"

Perhaps Sen. Kirk is a really big Michael Scott fan? Clearly someone has been binge-watching episodes of The Office.

We're impressed by Kirk's creativity, but also dismayed. Has anyone considered that what the White House really needs is neither a ho nor a bro in office, and that Washington could do without those sexist terms entirely?