Everyone Spoke With Mitch McConnell. Nobody Mentioned He Said Anything Back.
On June 14, first responders were called to Senator Mitch McConnell’s Washington home for an unconscious individual experiencing cardiac arrest. CPR was administered. He has been hospitalized ever since.
For three weeks, his office released almost no information. The same statement was issued repeatedly: the 84-year-old senator was “continuing to improve” and “working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters while the Senate is out of session.” No hospital name. No diagnosis. No prognosis. No photographs. No audio. No video. Nothing except the statement, reissued, over and over, like a recording on a loop.
And then the calls started.
Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist, announced he had spoken to his “old friend” Mitch McConnell for “just shy of 20 minutes” and that they had discussed Iran, Ukraine, the situation in Maine, a visit to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, and “even a little bit of Senate history.”
John Barrasso, the No. 2 Senate Republican and a physician, spoke with McConnell for 20 minutes. They discussed Senate races, the Supreme Court, and other topics. His spokeswoman said McConnell was “fully engaged and is eager to get back to the Senate.”
John Thune, the Senate Majority Leader, spoke with McConnell and the two had a “lengthy and substantive conversation that covered a variety of topics, including national security.”
Three men. Three conversations. All substantive. All covering serious policy topics. All approximately 20 minutes.
Notice anything missing from every single account?
Not one of them said McConnell responded.
Jennings described what they talked about. Not what McConnell said about it. Barrasso’s spokesperson said the senator was “fully engaged.” Not that he expressed an opinion. Not that he completed a sentence. Not that he asked a question. Thune’s team said they covered “national security.” Not that McConnell had thoughts about it.
When CNN anchor Kasie Hunt asked Jennings directly whether McConnell would be willing to call into the show — “Can we get him on the phone now?” — Jennings appeared to sidestep the question, saying “I wasn’t really expecting him to call this morning to be honest.”
He wasn’t expecting the man he had just called — the man he had spoken with for 20 minutes about Iran and Ukraine and Theodore Roosevelt — to be able to call a television show. A 20-minute conversation is a specific thing. It requires two participants. It requires sentences from both people. It requires a back-and-forth. What has been described sounds considerably more like one person talking at a phone held near an 84-year-old man who received CPR three weeks ago.
This is not a small distinction.
The Biden Comparison That Cannot Go Unnoticed
Many Republicans spent four years accusing President Biden’s inner circle of not being honest with voters about his cognitive abilities after he fumbled a crucial presidential debate in June 2024. These accusations were, in the end, well-founded. Biden was declining and his team managed the information around that decline. Republicans were right to be angry about it.
Glenn Beck, the conservative commentator, noted the exact same contradiction: “We need the truth about Mitch McConnell NOW,” he posted this week, arguing that a party that spent four years scrutinizing Biden’s health cannot credibly fall silent about one of its own. “What’s the difference between that and what Iran’s leaders are doing with the new Ayatollah?” he wrote. “Is McConnell braindead? Or is he chatting about Graham Platner and Iran?”
Glenn Beck is asking the right question. When a conservative commentator and Glenn Beck are the clearest voices in the room, something has gone very wrong with the room.
Utah Senator Mike Lee said in a post on his personal account that many senators weren’t speaking about McConnell’s health “because we know nothing about his condition.” Several senators confirming 20-minute policy conversations and one senator saying he knows nothing about the condition. Both things cannot be fully true.
The Doctor’s Concern
A physician raised concern over what she called potential “elder abuse.” She said that if McConnell is in fact talking to colleagues for 20 minutes, it is a good sign for his health — but she took issue with the excessive focus on policy in such calls. “They call him for 20 minutes, and they talk about public policy? Like, how about ‘how you doing, man?'” she said. “That’s terrible and stressful and not a very nice thing, and if I were his doctor, I would take away his phone.”
She also noted that if McConnell’s heart did stop, it raises questions about the length of time oxygen was not being delivered to his brain, which can result in cognitive impairment.
An 84-year-old man found unconscious, receiving CPR, hospitalized for more than three weeks, and his colleagues are calling him to discuss the NDAA and Supreme Court decisions. And then reporting back to the press that they had a great talk.
What Is Actually Being Protected Here
Americans, facing new proof of citizenship rules to vote, are left asking for proof of life for one of the nation’s most influential lawmakers. McConnell holds a Senate seat. His vote counts the same as a senator who walked in under his own power this morning. His possible resignation could trigger a special election in Kentucky, and the Kentucky legislature in 2024 passed a law stripping the state’s Democratic governor of the power to fill a vacant Senate seat. There are real political stakes that explain why Republicans want to keep that seat occupied regardless of the occupant’s condition.
McConnell’s staff have “been careful not to say he looks forward to returning to work.” That’s the thing that’s been missing from the statements — and they haven’t said it yet.
They have said he is improving. They have said he is engaged. They have said he is working with staff. They have said he is eager to return. His colleagues have said they had 20-minute conversations about Iran.
Not one of them has quoted him. Not one of them has described a sentence he completed. Not one of them has shared a thought he expressed. Scott Jennings talked about Iran for 20 minutes. John Barrasso talked about the Supreme Court for 20 minutes. John Thune talked about national security for a lengthy and substantive conversation.
Mitch McConnell, apparently, listened.
If he was listening at all.
The American people deserve better than a relay of reassurances passed from aide to senator to spokesperson to press release. They deserve to know whether the man casting votes on their behalf is capable of knowing what he is voting for.
The calls were 20 minutes long. That’s very specific. Very nearly the same. Just shy of. About 20. Twenty minutes.
One question: what did he say?