Republicans mum on McConnell status as another stumble revealed

Senate Republicans kept quiet Thursday on Mitch McConnell’s future as their leader after a bizarre health scare.

During a news conference Wednesday, the 81-year-old Kentucky Republican lost the ability to speak and stared straight ahead with a stone-faced expression for about 30 seconds. He was eventually led away by colleagues Joni Ernst of Iowa and John Barrasso of Wyoming to recuperate before returning a few minutes later to take more questions.

An aide later said McConnell was feeling “lightheaded and stepped away for a moment,” but the episode triggered new questions about his fitness to serve after a March 8 fall left him with a concussion and broken rib.

NBC News reported late Wednesday that the Republican leader also tripped and fell July 14 while getting off a canceled flight at Washington’s Reagan National Airport.

On Thursday, Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) told reporters that McConnell slipped and fell in Finland while visiting with a delegation of senators this past February.

“But it was also very icy at the time,” Budd recalled. “So, it could have happened to any of us.” The North Carolinian added that McConnell quickly got back to his feet and “we had the meeting and it was a great meeting.”

Asked if he was concerned about McConnell’s health at the time of the February fall, the 51-year-old Budd admitted: “Look, when any of us take a fall — I’m older than 50, so all of us are concerned.”

A rep for McConnell also admitted to USA Today he has been using a wheelchair as a “precautionary” measure to get around in crowded areas.

“Why is our country being led by unhealthy, obviously brain-damaged people like Biden, McConnell, and [Sen. John] Fetterman? In a country of 330 million, this is our leadership class? What an embarrassment,” The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis tweeted moments after McConnell’s latest episode.

“The top leadership of the US Government is extremely old — they stay around forever, clinging to power as tightly as they can, petrified to give it up — and so we have more and more upsetting scenes like this. Best wishes to Sen. McConnell’s health, but this is gerontocracy,” Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald said.

“The stamina and health of elected leaders has become a major problem in American politics,” Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk tweeted, naming Biden, McConnell, Fetterman, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). “These politicians have been entrenched or installed by corrupt party structures, but they are too old or too feeble to run the country. Resign.”

“We have way too many old, powerful people who are running this country into the ground. Nancy Pelosi, 83; Joe Biden, 80; Mitch McConnell, 81; Chuck Schumer, 72; George Soros, 92; [World Economic Forum chair] Klaus Schwab, 85[.] What the hell is going on? STOP THE GERONTOCRACY,” conservative commentator Benny Johnson tweeted.

“Between Fetterman mumbling all day, McConnell nearly stroking out on camera yesterday, Biden soiling his pants every ten minutes and Dianne Feinstein not even knowing how to vote on a bill … our government has become an adult day care center,” political strategist Joey Mannarino said.

So far, Senate Republicans have not suggested McConnell leave his post immediately over the episode, but one called for him to be straight with them about his health.

“Once you become a leader, your responsibilities, obviously, are with other constituents, namely — at least in his case — 48 of his closest friends,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told reporters Thursday. “…He should tell us if something bigger is going on, and whatever he tells me, I’ll trust to be true.”

Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD), McConnell’s second-in-command, deflected a question about whether the Kentuckian should run for party leader in 2025.

“The new Congress is 18 months away,” Thune said. “I’m trying to figure out how we get the defense authorization bill off the floor today.”

Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) said McConnell has a “tremendous amount of support” from his colleagues, but declined to say whether he would be elected to another two-year term as conference leader.

“I think that that’s speculation that’s not necessary right now,” she said.

McConnell has been the top Senate Republican since 2007, the longest anyone has held that post. Late last year, McConnell easily survived a leadership challenge from Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who managed to peel off just shy of a dozen Republican senators.

Many Republicans have bashed President Biden over a series of gaffes they attribute to his old age, such as a flub Tuesday in which he suggested he helped “end cancer as we know it.” McConnell is exactly nine months older than the commander-in-chief.

“The president called to check on me. I told him I got sandbagged,” McConnell told reporters Wednesday after the ordeal, in an apparent reference to Biden’s fall at the US Air Force Academy last month.

After wrapping up its business this week, the Senate is slated to head to a five-week August recess.

A McConnell spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.