Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate minority, froze up during a press conference this week in Covington, Kentucky. This happened a little over a month after a similar thing happened at the U.S. Capitol.
When asked whether he would run for reelection in 2026, McConnell laughed briefly before saying something that couldn’t be heard and staring into the distance for a long time with his eyes wide open and his body still.
When asked whether he had heard the question, McConnell looked like he said “Yes” before staying quiet for 20 seconds. Then he said, “Okay,” and went to talk to someone else.
In a second video that WLWT reporter Shannon Thomas shared on X, McConnell gives a weak answer to a question regarding Daniel Cameron, the Republican candidate for governor of Kentucky. He then refuses to respond to a question regarding Trump and slowly walks away from the platform.
In a statement to Breitbart News, a spokesman for McConnell said, “Leader McConnell felt a little dizzy and had to pause while in his press conference today.” An assistant wrote that he would see a doctor and said that he felt “fine.”
Jake Sherman, who helped start Punch Bowl News, pointed out that McConnell appeared to be in a very different mood just a few minutes before.
This past month, McConnell froze for about 20 seconds during a press meeting at the Capitol, which no one could figure out why.
After being taken to his office for a short time, he went back to the platform and said he was “fine,” according to the Associated Press.
Later, he made a joke: “The president called to see how I was doing. I told him that I had been sandbagged.” Biden said this after tripping over a sandbag at the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation in June.
BREAKING NEWS: Sen. Mitch McConnell appearing to have another scary episode in the media gaggle in Covington today. Aides had to step in to help him out and repeat questions. He was eventually lead away. We'll have the full video on @WLWT pic.twitter.com/q9ex5MHxLV
— Hannah Thomas (@HannahPThomas) August 30, 2023
Also, this happened after Jonathan Martin of Politico had written in the first person that “as someone who has reported on McConnell for years, it’s shocking to see his decline.”
He said that in unnamed talks on Capitol Hill throughout the summer, “how much McConnell has aged” was a big theme that kept coming up.
