Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared to freeze for about 30 seconds on Wednesday while speaking with reporters after a speech in Covington, Kentucky.
The incident is similar to an episode McConnell experienced at the US Capitol late last month and is likely to raise additional questions about the fitness of the 81-year-old to lead the Senate Republican caucus.
Wednesday’s episode occurred when a reporter asked the Republican leader if he was planning to run for reelection in 2026. McConnell had to ask him to repeat the question several times, chuckled for a moment, and then paused.
Someone at his side then asked him, “Did you hear the question, senator, running for reelection in 2026?” McConnell did not respond.
Article includes video of the incident.
That is hard to watch. I hate his guts and everything he’s done and stood for in politics, but it’s still rough to watch a man just fade away like that.
He needs to retire and stop clinging desperately to power. The stress of it alone is probably literally killing him.
Edit: Just so we’re clear, here, I’m not offering him sympathy. I have none to give for a monster like Mitch McConnell. The man has done enormous damage to the country, and people like him are why I worry about the future for my kids (both LGBTQ+).
I was only trying to express that on a gut level, it’s still unpleasant to see someone basically drain away like that.
He lost all potential sympathy from me when he denied Garland and rammed in Barett during an election year before RBG was fucking cold in the ground. That decision and denial of representation has made shockwaves of regression in terms of civil rights, voting rights, women’s bodily autonomy and LGBTQ rights …and that’s what we have gone backward in…so far (birth control and gay marriage being illegal again is coming) and we will feel these effects for several decades way after he’s gone.
tots and fucking pears, goddamn ghoul.
Yup. SCOTUS is eternally corrupted thanks almost exclusively to one man, and the sooner he’s worm food the better. Hell, even the fucking worms will gag on his bones.
Whether he clings to power and dies from stress is kind of his decision.
I don’t enjoy seeing a person, even him, suffering illness. Even as much as I despise that horrible piece of shit.
My initial response is to feel empathy and compassion when I see this, it’s awful. Then I remind myself how many people have been hurt by him and how many people continue to be hurt by him and my compassion is tempered. I don’t delight in his ailing, but I can’t say I feel the same about this as I would if it were someone else.
He lost “human” status a long time ago. I actually like reptiles and lizards, so I have a better one:
Ghoul.