SerpApi.Org
A Republican colleague of Sen. Mitch McConnell is calling on him to return to work as his secretive health crisis is in its sixth week.
Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, 71, reminded the 84-year-old McConnell that Republicans cannot afford to lose McConnell’s vote in the Senate, where the GOP holds only a razor-thin majority.
“Somebody needs to do something. Somebody needs to come out and put a little video out,” Tuberville told journalist Nicholas Ballasy on Tuesday. “We didn’t get any information today in our luncheon. I don’t know why, what’s going on, but that’s not my business; that’s the leadership’s business, and we wish him well.”
“Hopefully he gets over whatever happened. He’s had a tough couple of years, you know, from falling, hitting these hard floors and all that,” he added. That was a reference to McConnell’s repeated stumbles in the years leading up to his June 14 hospitalization, the most recent one being his October 2025 trip and fall that was caught on camera.
Tuberville even set a timeline for McConnell to return.
“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 said. The Senate is scheduled to go into recess on Aug. 8 and won’t return until Sept. 14.
“We’re gonna need him because the Democrats’ not gonna give us any votes,” Tuberville added.
On July 12, nearly a month after he was rushed to a hospital, McConnell released a proof-of-life photo and released a lengthy statement disclosing that he didn’t break any bones or suffer a heart attack, but took a fall in June and “was briefly unconscious and was taken to the hospital.”
“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.
It’s been two weeks since anyone has said they spoke to the aging senator. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, whip John Barrasso, and CNN commentator Scott Jennings all said they spoke to McConnell the week of July 6.
McConnell’s team, led by $226,000-a-year longtime aide Terry Camack, has released scant details on the state of his health. His office did not respond to a request for comment on this story, nor has it returned earlier questions from the Daily Beast about when he would return to work.
Other Republican lawmakers have previously called out McConnell over his disappearance.
“If McConnell is in as bad a shape as Biden ever was — or worse — he needs to step aside. This charade can’t continue,” South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace said on X. “We can’t demand of others what we won’t demand of ourselves.”
Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett, meanwhile, claimed that there was a cover-up going on.
“Nothing in Washington ever happens by accident,” Burchett previously told Newsmax. “It’s just a cover-up on top of a cover-up. And that’s why nobody trusts what’s going on in Washington. This whole thing is a farce.”
