A top medical expert has sounded the alarm on just how serious Senator Mitch McConnell’s latest health episode may be.
The 84-year-old senator was found unconscious at his Washington, D.C. home last month, and first responders were told of “CPR in progress” due to “cardiac arrest.”
After avoiding questions from reporters for weeks, McConnell’s aides finally revealed on Thursday that the senator has been in hospital since June 14.
“Senator McConnell appreciates the outpouring of support he’s receiving while he continues his recovery in the hospital,” the emailed statement from his office reads. “The Senator continues to improve, and is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters while the Senate is out of session.”
Discussing the revelation on Thursday night’s edition of Erin Burnett Outfront on CNN, as well as McConnell’s health more broadly, emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and assistant professor at Harvard, Dr. Jeremy Faust, said that the situation was potentially “really concerning.”
Asked by host Erica Hill what the leaked June 14 EMS phone call says about just how serious the episode was, Faust said, “When we hear that, we often get a call like that saying we have a patient coming to the hospital receiving CPR. And what that means is that their heart has stopped, and if CPR does not work, we will have to pronounce them dead.”
“If it does work and we can restart their heart and their heart is beating spontaneously, that begins a long road to recovery, even for the healthiest of patients,” he continued. “So when you have a person who is elderly and who has other underlying medical conditions, it‘s really concerning.
Hill then asked Faust whether it would be uncommon for someone with McConnell’s health history to remain hospitalized 18 days later. The doctor replied that while he was not familiar with McConnell’s case specifically, he noted that only about a quarter of people who experience cardiac arrest survive to the hospital.
“And then of those people, a tiny fraction survive that hospitalization with cognitive and neurologic intact status, meaning that they‘re able to even take care of their bodily needs,” he continued.
“So 2 percent or 3 percent, maybe, who even make it to survival out of the hospital, are functionally able to do the things that you and I would consider bodily... taking care of your body.”
McConnell has experienced several health scares during his seven terms in the Senate, having first been elected in 1985.
In February, he spent eight days in hospital after checking himself in “in an abundance of caution” after experiencing “flu-like symptoms.” In October, he fell over at the Capitol after being questioned by activists, and had to be helped to his feet by an aide and a member of the Capitol Hill police.
He was also photographed being escorted out of the Capitol in a wheelchair after falling twice in quick succession in February 2025, with his spokesperson Dave Popp stressing that he was fine and that “the lingering effects of polio in his left leg will not disrupt his regular schedule of work.”
The senator was treated for multiple injuries, including a sprained wrist and a small cut on his face, after falling during a Senate lunch in December 2024. In 2023, he was hospitalized after suffering from a “minor rib fracture” and concussion after a fall.
Faust also discussed an incident from July 2023 in which McConnell froze during a press conference before being whisked away by his colleagues.
“It‘s important to acknowledge that the senator and his staff has never really acknowledged what happened there, whether they‘ve denied an underlying neurologic condition,” Faust told Hill. “But something like that, where you lose consciousness, essentially—he maintained posture, certainly the lights were on, but it‘s unclear if anyone was home for those 15 or 20 seconds where he was just standing there–that can happen at any time, and that can lead to all kinds of problems.”
“You can fall and break your ribs and have pneumonia, or in your sleep, you‘re just not protecting your airway as well, and you can develop sepsis and die. So why, if that call was Senator McConnell, why did he have cardiac arrest? Was it because an underlying condition that was already a problem then tipped him over?”
The doctor continued, “The thing with CPR is that it really works nicely. If it‘s just your heart, that is the problem. We can do so many things, but a lot of other things, underlying medical conditions, make things complicated, and pretty much CPR might work in terms of restarting the heart. But in terms of regaining that functional status, that‘s usually a much bigger ask. And it happens far less frequently.”
The Daily Beast has contacted Sen. McConnell’s office for comment.
