Even James Carville’s rage knows some bounds.
In a surprising show of restraint, the veteran Democratic strategist came to the defense of GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell in a Politicon video published Sunday, instead directing his disappointment at those who take joy in their opponents’ poor health.
While discussing with his co-host, Al Hunt, whether Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear should hold a special election for the 84-year-old McConnell’s Senate seat, Carville claimed the idea itself was absurd.
“I don’t know what people are talking about,” the former Bill Clinton aide said. “The United States senator from Kentucky right now is Mitch McConnell. It’s that simple.”
Carville highlighted a historical example of a similar situation with former North Dakota Sen. Quentin Burdick, who also experienced health problems that kept him away from his duties on Capitol Hill.
Though 76 percent of his constituents believed he should have stepped down from his position early, a special election was never held. Burdick eventually died in 1992 while still in office, suffering a heart failure at the age of 84.
Rather than targeting McConnell for his prolonged absence and the mystery surrounding his condition, the “Ragin’ Cajun” opted to call out members of his own party who celebrated their adversaries’ sickness.
“Let me be clear: I don’t want anybody to get sick, okay? I just don’t,” Carville, 81, asserted. “Not Lindsey Graham, not Mitch McConnell, right? Not even Donald Trump, okay?”
McConnell’s health has been a major obstacle throughout his seventh and final term in the Senate. Before his hospitalization last month on June 14, the former Senate majority leader suffered a series of health scares over the last year, including several falls.
McConnell claimed in a statement that he did not suffer “a stroke or a heart attack,” and that he went to the hospital after falling at his D.C. residence and becoming “briefly unconscious.” However, emergency dispatch audio first obtained by independent journalist Desirée Townsend showed that first responders at the scene reported a “CPR in progress” due to “heart failure.”
Hours before McConnell broke his silence, news emerged that South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham had died at 71 from an aortic dissection following a trip to Ukraine.
“We’ve just been slinging around—and I mean, I like hard, hardball politics. I like body slams and everything,” he added. “But it’s just fascination and glee in other people’s health issues is just something I don’t want to be part of. I just don’t want to be part of it.”
Hunt agreed, and also rejected theories surrounding the dubious circumstances of McConnell’s photo that he released from the hospital earlier this month. The journalist called GOP Sen. Ron Johnson, who said the image was an “older photo” before later retracting his claims, a “nutbag” for expressing such an idea.
