McConnell Zones Out in Awkward, Lengthy Pause in a Capitol Press Conference
The incident comes as elected officials, and members of the upper chamber in particular, have been scrutinized for serving for far too long and while in poor health.
At a press conference Wednesday, the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, froze mid-sentence before being escorted away from the podium by staffers.
While speaking to the press, Mr. McConnell, 81, began a sentence by saying, “In a string of …,” before stopping suddenly and staring off blankly into the crowd.
After about 30 seconds of dead silence in a corridor of the Capitol, an aide leaned in to ask, “Anything else you want to say?” The senator was then escorted away from the podium.
Mr. McConnell later returned to the podium and took questions from reporters, telling them, “I’m fine.” In March, Mr. McConnell suffered a concussion resulting from a fall. He returned to the Senate in April.
The incident comes as elected officials, and members of the upper chamber in particular, have been scrutinized for serving for far too long and while in poor health.
Senator Feinstein, 89, was absent from the Senate for months earlier this year, dealing with a persistent case of shingles. During an exchange with a reporter from Slate, she later appeared to claim that she hadn’t been absent.
Questions about Senator Fetterman’s health have also percolated in the press and on social media, largely because of speech impediments that have dogged him since he suffered a stroke early in his Senate campaign.
Although Mr. Fetterman’s doctor has cleared him to serve, persistent issues with speaking have made for moments that skeptics have seized upon to call into question Mr. Fetterman’s health. Mr. Fetterman uses technology typically disallowed in the Senate to help him with auditory processing. He was also hospitalized for clinical depression for several weeks earlier this year.
Looming over much of American politics is the likelihood that the 2024 election will be a rematch of the 2020 election, a contest in which both of the frontrunners are much older than previous presidents.
In 2024, President Biden, the likely Democratic nominee, will be 82 years old and President Trump, the current Republican frontrunner, will be 77.
Following the incident with Mr. McConnell Wednesday, social media users immediately began to speculate on what they had witnessed, with Twitter users writing about 50,000 tweets on the topic in the hour after the press conference ended prematurely.
