SerpApi.Org
Mitch McConnell‘s GOP colleagues in the Senate are getting impatient with the 84-year-old Kentucky senator’s prolonged and mysterious hospital stay, and at least one is demanding he get back to work.
On July 21, Senator Tommy Tuberville, a 71-year-old Republican from Alabama, told journalist Nicholas Ballasy that the Senate has not received an update on McConnell’s health and, in his view, the situation is getting ridiculous.
“Somebody needs to do something. Somebody needs to come out and put a little video out,” he demanded of McConnell’s team.
Tuberville then surmised that Republicans in the Senate are going to need McConnell back soon, because the Senate goes into recess on August 8.
“He’s gonna need to come back probably before this three-week session’s over with, because then we’re off for like five weeks,” he added. “We’re gonna need him because the Democrats’ not gonna give us any votes.”
McConnell has been hospitalized since June 14, and for weeks nobody knew why. It wasn’t until rumors began to spread that McConnell had secretly died that he provided proof of life on July 12. There, he revealed in a statement that he fell in his home and was rendered “briefly unconscious.” He also revealed that while in the hospital, he developed a “mild case of pneumonia” that has kept him there.
“As much as it frustrates me, this process takes time. And on the advice of my doctors, I won’t be able to return to the Senate floor to vote quite yet,” he said in the statement.
It’s been back to radio silence from McConnell’s camp ever since.
The last people to have claimed they’d spoken to McConnell are MAGA pundit Scott Jennings, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, and Senate whip John Barrasso, who all gave eerily similar claims about speaking to McConnell for “about 20 minutes” on current affairs. Those claims were made in early July, days before McConnell gave his hospital update.
Tuberville is far from the only politician connected to McConnell who’s been frustrated with the secrecy surrounding his health. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear has on multiple occasions publicly demanded updates on McConnell, only to be stonewalled like the rest of the world. On July 20, he claimed he’d heard from two unnamed “agencies” that McConnell had actually died.
Beshear has the authority to call a special election for McConnell’s replacement if McConnell dies or retires from the Senate by August 3, and some Democrats have urged Beshear to call it anyway because of the questions surrounding the longtime Senator.
McConnell previously announced that he would retire when his current term expires in January 2027.
