Mitch McConnell has not been seen in more than two months, and while some Republicans have claimed to have spoken to the 84-year-old senator, the people of Kentucky have been left in the dark.
Democrat Charles Booker, who is running to fill McConnell’s Senate seat, is not buying Republican claims that they’ve spoken to the senator since he was rushed to the hospital on June 14.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Whip John Barrasso, and conservative commentator Scott Jennings have all insisted they’ve had calls with McConnell, during which they’ve talked policy.
“In an age where every time we turn on the news, there’s lies, we’re in an age of politics where dishonesty is the norm, and the lack of transparency is to be expected,” Booker told the Daily Beast on Friday. “It’s why a lot of people don’t trust politics, so no, I do not believe them.”
“Mitch McConnell has been known to lie to our people here in Kentucky and the country throughout his career,” he added.
McConnell’s team has put out two photos since the senator disappeared. While he is allegedly holding calls with GOP allies and working with staff, he has not called any news outlets or released any videos reassuring the people of Kentucky about his recovery.
“There’s a lot of deep, deep frustration. Kentuckians, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike are offended at this point,” Booker said of what he’s hearing on the campaign trail.
“I’ve been very consistent in saying that this is not about attacking Mitch McConnell because he had a health emergency. We know how serious that is, but it’s the secrecy. It’s the dishonesty. It’s the odd vagueness and the contradictions his team has presented that it was a mild fall with no real complications and then a mild case of pneumonia, which does not add up,” Booker said.
Booker said that Kentuckians are used to being “screwed over by Mitch McConnell, and this just feels like another way to punch us on the way out, and to tell Kentuckians that he doesn’t care about us.”
McConnell is not running for reelection at the end of his six-year term, leaving the race for the seat open for the first time in more than 40 years since he first took office in January 1985.
“Mitch McConnell needs to speak directly to the people,” Booker said. “If he’s supposedly talking to all these Republican leaders, 20-plus minute conversations, he can talk to the people of Kentucky, and it should be, if not in person, certainly a video that is verified.”
Booker secured the Democratic nomination and will face off against GOP Rep. Andy Barr in November. Barr claimed to have spoken to McConnell at the end of July after previously saying they had texted.
“He’s playing a lot of politics at a moment that Kentuckians really do need accountability regardless of party,” Booker slammed Barr while accusing him of remaining largely silent on the issue.
“For me, this is not about party politics. Democrats, Republicans, Independents. Even if you did not vote for Mitch McConnell, he has been elected to represent Kentucky, and if he is unable to do it, people should know,” Booker said.
The Daily Beast reached out to Barr’s campaign and office about McConnell’s now two-month absence but did not receive a response.
While Kentucky has a Democratic governor, and reelected Gov. Andy Beshear in 2023, it has elected Republican senators for decades. GOP Senator Rand Paul beat Booker by 23 points in 2022, but the Democratic Senate hopeful believes McConnell’s vanishing act has changed the dynamic in 2026.
“I think it has put a bright light on the race in general,” Booker said. “It is sending a clear message to people across Kentucky and across the country that this is an open seat.”
He’s arguing it’s an opportunity for the state to do something different and that McConnell and his team reflect a lack of accountability.
While McConnell has been absent for two months, his team has released fewer than a handful of statements. Most recently, they released one on August 6, attributed to McConnell, saying he had left the rehab center and was continuing his recovery at home, where he would do his physical therapy and keep working with staff.
However, his staffers, including his longtime chief of staff Terry Carmack, who makes an annual salary of more than $226,000 a year, have refused to answer questions about McConnell’s status when confronted in the halls of the U.S. Capitol and outside the senator’s Washington, D.C. home.
The Daily Beast’s inquiry about McConnell’s progress and whether he would be able to travel back to Kentucky at all during the Senate’s August recess or expected to be recovered enough to return to the halls of Congress when the Senate returned in mid-September went unanswered on Friday.
Beshear said on Friday that he has received “absolutely nothing” from McConnell, despite repeatedly calling for transparency and sending letters to the senator and his team.
“This is why the Senate feels broken. These guys don’t think that they have a boss when the people of Kentucky are their boss,” Beshear said on MS NOW. “They don’t feel like they’re accountable whatsoever. It’s Mitch McConnell not showing up for work for two months and refusing to call into one news show or create one video for the constituents that he’s supposed to serve.”
