Long-time Democratic senator and Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was hospitalized for dehydration early on Wednesday morning.
Per a statement from Schumer’s spokeperson to The Daily Beast, Schumer began to feel lightheaded while at the gym and was hospitalized “out of an abundance of caution.” Schumer was treated at the hospital and is now back working at the Capitol.
With temperatures in Washington hovering around 95 degrees, Schumer’s spokesperson said that the Brooklyn native “wants to remind everyone to drink some water and stay out of the heat.”
Schumer has represented New York in Congress for almost 45 years, first as a member of the House of Representatives and then as a senator since 1999.
The septuagenarian has had few public health scares in his decades on the Hill, headlined by a brief bout with pneuomonia in 2018 and a positive COVID-19 diagnosis in 2020. He is well-known for using the Senate gym to schmooze with lawmakers from across the aisle.
Schumer is the second D.C. politico to be carted off to the hospital in the past fortnight, with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem being hospitalized last Tuesday for an allergic reaction.
Health issues among older politicians have been a bipartisan affair in Washington in recent years. Former GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suffered multiple “freezing episodes” in 2023 and has fallen several times in public in recent years.
The late Senator Diane Feinstein, who died in 2023 at age 90 while still in office, faced persistent rumors of cognitive decline toward the end of her tenure.
Yesterday, Schumer blasted the Trump administration for delaying a classified briefing on the American strikes on Iran. He missed a press conference this morning which he was scheduled to lead.
Read it at Axios
