Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared to freeze for about 30 seconds on Wednesday while speaking with reporters after a speech in Covington, Kentucky.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared to freeze for about 30 seconds on Wednesday while speaking with reporters after a speech in Covington, Kentucky.
The incident is similar to an episode McConnell experienced at the US Capitol late last month and is likely to raise additional questions about the fitness of the 81-year-old to lead the Senate Republican caucus.
Wednesday’s episode occurred when a reporter asked the Republican leader if he was planning to run for reelection in 2026. McConnell had to ask him to repeat the question several times, chuckled for a moment, and then paused.
Someone at his side then asked him, “Did you hear the question, senator, running for reelection in 2026?” McConnell did not respond.
That being said, yes, McConnell is one of the key architects of how dysfunctional our system of government has become. From using the filibuster more times during the Obama administration than all prior administrations COMBINED, to blocking a legitimately named Supreme Court Justice, not by allowing him a fair vote, but by denying him a hearing AT ALL.
BUT...
Now hear me out... BUT...
He does have three daughters, Porter, is actually an activist:
You can make fun of the guy, you can hate the guy, but before you wish death on the guy, take just a moment to consider his family and how they must feel watching him break down like this live on camera, not once, but twice.
Just because I have no wish to murder you before the eyes of your daughter does not mean parading her around in front of me is going to inspire sympathy. You and I have unfinished business. And not a goddamn fucking thing you've done in the subsequent four years, including getting knocked up, is going to change that.
Well that is a fucking ice cold take and a half. Takes a lot to willfully look at the record of Mitch McConnell, who has had a significant part in setting socioeconomic progress in this country back 50 years, and say that his decline and public embarrassment is somehow something I should at all feel sad about.
I'm not asking you to feel sad, I'm asking you to recognize that as awful he is, he's still a human being and has other human beings who, in theory, care about him.
As a human being, I feel great empathy for the man and his family. I wish him nothing but the best in health and family life and am saddened to see his decline. But was someone 100% opposed to his politics I will fight endlessly to destroy both his works and his legacy even as he has worked to destroy democracy as we've come to know it.
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.