Mitch McConnell’s wife Elaine Chao has been slammed by the couple’s hometown newspaper for her moves following her husband’s hospitalization.
The 84-year-old Kentucky senator was hospitalized after he was found unconscious following an apparent heart attack at his Washington, D.C. home on June 14, according to EMS dispatch audio.
But just three days later, Chao, 73, who formerly served as transportation secretary in the first Trump administration and labor secretary in the Bush administration, was photographed in Beijing meeting with Chinese Vice President Han Zheng.
Chao finally addressed her ill-timed overseas travel this week with an unnamed spokesperson saying her trip was “long-planned” and the senator’s health “did not warrant an immediate return to the US.”
To that, Joseph Gerth, longtime opinion columnist with the Louisville Courier Journal, wrote: “Are you kidding me?”
“Paramedics responded to a call about an unconscious person in cardiac arrest and performed CPR at his Washington home on the day he was admitted to the hospital and Chao’s first thought wasn’t, ‘I probably ought to go home,’” he wrote.
“What’s up with that?” he added.
The columnist added that he doesn’t “really care if McConnell’s office tells us exactly how he’s doing or what he’s up to,” but noted he “would like to know” why Chao was in China.
The senator’s office refused to answer basic questions about his health for several days, and has only repeated the same statement originally released on July 2 that he is “working closely” with staff on Senate business while Congress is out of session. McConnell’s staff is led by his longtime, camera-shy aide Terry Carmack, who is on track to earn more than $226,000 this year.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat widely seen as a 2028 presidential contender, has demanded answers about McConnell’s health, sending a letter to his team on Wednesday.
“Allowing speculation to continue in the media is not fair to the Senator or to Kentuckians, and my hope is that this provides him the opportunity to share the information in a transparent manner, direct from the source,” Beshear wrote. “I wish him a safe and speedy recovery.”
Top Senate Republicans, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, have both claimed to have spoken with McConnell on Tuesday.
But far-right influencer Laura Loomer has claimed a source told her McConnell was “brain dead,” and MAGA Sen. Mike Lee has asserted that Republican lawmakers were not speaking out about his condition because they knew nothing about it.
Before his most recent hospitalization, McConnell, the longest-serving party leader in Senate history, had already said he would not seek re-election in 2026.
His final months in office have been plagued by a series of health scares and injuries.
These include medical episodes during which he has frozen and stopped talking mid-sentence on camera, several falls in the halls of Congress, resulting in a broken wrist and cuts to the face, and the need to use a wheelchair.
