Top Republican, 84, Refuses to Come Clean on Health Crisis
Mitch McConnell is not saying why he was hospitalized over the weekend.
Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters
Republicans are refusing to say what exactly it is that saw 84-year-old former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hospitalized over the weekend.
McConnell’s office has confirmed that he was taken into hospital on Sunday morning. His staff has provided no reason for the stay—his second of the year so far—and no details on his condition.
John Thune, McConnell’s successor as Senate majority leader, told PunchBowl News Monday that he had spoken with the Kentucky senator, who “wants to be back, but I’ll defer to his staff on when.” He added that McConnell is “clearly dialed into what’s going on” and keeping up with the chamber’s business this week.
Thune has been tight-lipped on McConnell's condition.
Annabelle Gordon/AFP via Getty Images
Stephanie Penn, a spokesperson for the 84-year-old, told the Daily Beast on Monday that he is “fully engaged with staff” and grateful for his care. It is the latest in a run of health scares.
McConnell spent about eight days in care in February with “flu-like symptoms.” He also fell over at the Capitol in October as campaigners harangued him about ICE raids. That tumble followed after another fall in which he injured his wrist in December 2024, and another which left him with a concussion in March 2023.
McConnell has repeatedly sparred with Trump since the president's thumping 2020 election loss.
Ludovic Marin/Pool via Reuters
The senator, who gave up the party’s top job in the chamber at the start of 2025, has become one of the sharpest Republican critics of Donald Trump, who turned 80 over the weekend.
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McConnell was one of three GOP lawmakers to vote against Pete Hegseth as defense secretary in January 2025, questioning whether the former Fox News host actually understood the threat posed to the U.S. by China.
He was also the lone Republican to oppose Tulsi Gabbard as intelligence chief and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary.
Trump and McConnell have openly feuded since the president’s 2020 loss to Joe Biden and the subsequent riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. McConnell has further split with Trump over the president’s tariff measures and decision to backtrack on U.S. support for Ukraine in its defense against the Kremlin’s ongoing invasion.
He is understood to have once called Trump a “despicable human being,” according to a 2024 biography of McConnell by Associated Press journalist Michael Tackett. McConnell will be retiring when his seventh term in the Senate ends in January.
The Daily Beast has contacted the senator’s office for further comment on this story.
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