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‘Owes the Public an Explanation’: Amid Concern, Critics Call for McConnell to Retire After Another ‘Alarming’ Episode
After the second episode in just five weeks, critics are expressing concern but urging Mitch McConnell to retire after the U.S. Senate Republican Minority Leader once again appeared to “freeze” while talking to reporters on Wednesday, an event The New York Times labeled “alarming.”
Senator Mitch McConnell experienced another alarming freeze-up at a news conference on Wednesday in Covington, Kentucky, the second such episode caught on camera in recent weeks. The episode intensified questions about his future in the Senate. https://t.co/q05DVdCWjO pic.twitter.com/4fXBhhABy2
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 30, 2023
President Biden told reporters on Wednesday McConnell is a “friend,” and he will be calling him.
President Biden said that he is going to be reaching out to Mitch McConnell this afternoon to check on his health. pic.twitter.com/Zj4P2q90WD
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) August 30, 2023
McConnell has suffered several medical episodes this year, some of which went largely unreported.
Back in July the 81-year old Republican, who has served the people of Kentucky in various offices since 1975, appeared to freeze for about 20 seconds while at a Senate press conference. He had to be helped to walk away but returned later that day, suggesting nothing was wrong as his fellow Republicans and his aides told reporters he was merely “lightheaded” and “dehydrated.” His office issued a statement saying he “plans to serve his full term in the job they overwhelmingly elected him to do.”
On Wednesday, WLWT’s Hannah Thomas, reported this statement from McConnell’s team: “Leader McConnell felt momentarily lightheaded and paused during his press conference today.”
Earlier, from Georgia, Thomas noted, “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.”
The American Independent’s senior political reporter Emily Singer, before McConnell’s office released a statement similar to the one in July, noted, “McConnell’s office owes the public an explanation of what’s going on with his health. He is clearly not ok.”
Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, lumping McConnell’s latest episode in with her perceptions of other leaders, said: “Severe aging health issues and/or mental health incompetence in our nation’s leaders MUST be addressed.”
“These politician’s staff and family members should be ashamed of themselves by enabling and allowing their loved ones to remain in office all to hold power,” she continued. “We are talking about our country’s national security and it’s all at stake!”
Former GOP U.S. Congressman Joe Walsh wrote, “This is sad. Very sad. And I hope his health improves. But just like Diane Feinstein, Mitch McConnell really ought to resign from the Senate. Now.”
Keith Boykin, the former Democratic White House aide and political commentator said, “Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell froze again today in public, this time when asked by a reporter in Kentucky if he planned to run for re-election in 2026. Re-election? He’s 81. This feels like elder abuse to keep him in office. Let him retire.”
NBC News’ Ryan Nobles, one of the first to report on McConnell’s latest apparent health-related incident, adds that McConnell “is expected to see a physician before his next event,” according to a spokesperson.
In July, The Washington Post in a rare move spoke with medical experts about McConnell’s “freezing” episode.
“Four neurologists interviewed by The Washington Post who reviewed footage of the incident said it could be explained by a range of reasons: dehydration exacerbated by heat, a near-fainting episode, or a partial seizure or stroke. One said it also could suggest an underlying neurological disorder that has not been publicly disclosed,” The Post reported. “The specialists stressed that they cannot offer firm conclusions or diagnoses without examining McConnell and reviewing his medical history. They said it was premature to question the longtime Senate GOP leader’s fitness to serve, although they said Wednesday’s episode merited medical attention.”
In March McConnell suffered a serious trip and fall incident, and was hospitalized with injuries including a concussion.
In June McConnell had “trouble hearing questions from reporters who could be clearly heard by the senators next to him,” CNN reported last month. CNN also reported on a previously unknown trip and fall incident “in Finland when McConnell and a US delegation met with the Finnish president in Helsinki, according to three sources familiar with the matter.”
That incident occurred just days before the trip and fall that led to McConnell being hospitalized for five days with a concussion and rib injury, and out of Washington for six weeks, only returning after a news outlet reported his own Republican leadership team was making plans to find his successor.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
