WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Mitch McConnell on Sunday revealed for the first time that a fall led to his hospitalization, breaking the silence about his condition after weeks of mounting speculation about the Kentucky Republican’s health.
McConnell, 84, said in a statement that he also suffered a case of mild pneumonia and has undergone a battery of tests as doctors try to determine what led to his fall. He explained the long silence about his condition by saying that “folks of my generation often hesitate to share the vulnerability that comes with growing older.”
“Even in the public eye, I feel that same instinct — I can’t help it,” he said.
McConnell said he is now in a rehabilitation center and will not be returning to the Senate “quite yet.” He said he continues to work with his staff on Senate business in the meantime.
The statement included a smiling picture of the senator with his wife Elaine Chao, a tacit response to speculation online that McConnell had died or was incapacitated.
McConnell had provided little information since his hospitalization on June 14, his office insisting only that he was “receiving excellent care” and recovering. As his hospital stay grew longer, speculation grew so intense that Kentucky’s Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear took the extraordinary step of asking that McConnell update the public about his health in a “transparent manner.”
McConnell has a history of health problems
McConnell had polio in his early childhood and he has long acknowledged some difficulty as an adult in walking and climbing stairs. An accompanying statement from the physician’s office in Congress on Sunday said McConnell has “experienced several falls through the year” due to his “post-polio condition.”
McConnell was first elected to the Senate in 1984 and was the Republican leader from 2007 until last year, serving as both majority and minority leader during that period. He has remained active as a rank-and-file senator, showing up for work when the chamber is in session, often using a wheelchair to get around.
But the senator’s physical condition has visibly declined in recent years.
He was hospitalized with a concussion in March 2023 and missed several weeks of work after falling in a Washington hotel. He twice froze up during news conferences after he returned, staring vacantly ahead before colleagues and staff. A year later, he fell and sprained his wrist while walking out of a GOP luncheon.
Mary Clare Jalonick, The Associated Press
