CNN’s resident Republican political analyst Scott Jennings offered an update aimed at quelling the rumors swirling around Washington, D.C., about Sen. Mitch McConnell’s health status on Tuesday.
Jennings, a former adviser to McConnell, on Tuesday, said he’d spoken to the long-serving former Republican Senate leader, who remains hospitalized.
McConnell’s allies in Republican Senate leadership maintain that he will return to work, even as updates on his condition from his office have not been forthcoming. But already the senator’s critics have begun to question whether his condition is being reported accurately.
Jennings said on Tuesday that he and McConnell spoke about several topics, including the new sexual assault allegations rocking the Maine Senate race and the evolving ceasefire with Iran.
“He’s still recovering in the hospital,” Jennings said. “ I told him we want to see him back at work as soon as possible.”
On Monday, MAGA activist Laura Loomer waded into the discussion. Loomer, a far-right conspiracy theorist with a long history of making racist statements and embracing bizarre falsehoods, tweeted that a “high level source close to the White House” told her that the Kentucky senator was “brain dead” and “not coming back” to Washington.
Loomer’s credibility issues are well known, but her connections to Donald Trump’s White House are equally as strong. She aided Trump in purging what she perceived as disloyal members of the National Security Council last year, and was last spotted at the White House as recently as last month.
The Independent reached out to McConnell’s office for updates on his status on Tuesday, as speculation was rampant on social media.
“Senator McConnell appreciates the outpouring of support he’s receiving while he continues his recovery in the hospital. The Senator continues to improve, and is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters while the Senate is out of session,” a spokesperson for his office told news outlets last week.
“Senator McConnell appreciates the outpouring of support he’s receiving while he continues his recovery in the hospital,” his office continued.
Shortly after noon, members of Senate leadership released statements claiming, like Jennings, to have spoken to the senator.
“Leader Thune spoke with Sen. McConnell yesterday by phone. They had a lengthy and substantive conversation that covered a variety of topics, including national security,” said a spokesperson for Thune’s office said, according to Punchbowl.
McConnell’s status represents a highly-charged subject on Capitol Hill. Clearly in declining overall health, he now regularly travels around the Capitol in a wheelchair after a bad fall on the Hill in early 2025. He no longer makes regular appearances or statements at Republican press conferences, a weekly fixture on the Hill, and rarely speaks with reporters around the Capitol complex. Stepping back from leadership, he announced last year that he would not stand for re-election in 2028 — setting up a battle for his seat in deep-red Kentucky.
Paramedics who were dispatched to his home June 14 reported performing CPR on a person in cardiac arrest, according to dispatch audio obtained by The Washington Post.
At the same time, however, he remains a sharp-edged political figure in the upper chamber. Post-leadership McConnell has become something of a Senate maverick, breaking with Donald Trump and the White House more frequently than most of his colleagues and sometimes taking uncomfortable stances (and votes) which his successor as GOP Senate leader, John Thune and the GOP caucus use to send messages to the White House.
One of those messages was delivered in late May, just weeks before his hospitalization. McConnell was present, along with most of the GOP Senate caucus, for a lunchtime meeting with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche as the DOJ chief sought to pitch senators one last time on a $1.776 billion fund meant to benefit victims of the Department of Justice’s supposed “weaponization” by Joe Biden — including, critically, convicted January 6 rioters who attacked members of law enforcement.
That meeting was a fiery clash between senators and Blanche, and afterwards it was McConnell who drove home the Senate GOP’s opposition to forcing senators to fund such a provision in an election year.
“So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong – Take your pick,” the former GOP leader said at the time.
He also opposed the confirmation of three Trump Cabinet members last year: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. McConnell has long been one of the greatest thorns in Trump’s side during his political career, but also saved Trump from public oblivion in 2021 when he opposed the impeachment of Trump after the January 6 attack.
His absence from the Senate now poses a big problem for Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
The chamber was already suffering repeated defections on key votes as the White House’s rift with the Senate over issues like the Iran war, the selection of Bill Pulte as Gabbard’s replacement, the “slush fund” and more continues to grow. Further angering Republican senators, Trump has endorsed against two incumbents this cycle, both of whom went on to lose their seats in Republican primaries. Such a move will mean that Republicans have to spend more money and fight harder to protect a Senate majority which most agree would not even be in danger were it not for Trump’s antics.
If McConnell’s latest health scare precedes his sudden departure from the Senate, the scramble to fill his seat via special election could be just one more headache for Republican leadership as it charts a path through the midterms.
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