Scott Jennings said on Tuesday that Mitch McConnell expects to be back in the Senate when it returns on September 14, offering the clearest timetable yet for the longtime Republican leader after more than seven weeks out of public view. Jennings said he spoke to McConnell directly and came away with the sense that the 84-year-old senator is recovering and trying to get back to work.
The update matters because McConnell has been missing from the chamber while key votes have kept moving past him, including action on a war powers resolution on Iran, judicial nominations and policies on housing affordability. Last week, he was also absent when Todd Blanche was narrowly confirmed as Trump’s new attorney general, another sign that his absence has had consequences well beyond one senator’s schedule.
Jennings said McConnell told him, “I know this is unusual circumstances. I’m sitting here. The doctors tell me I don’t have any life-threatening issues. It must seem rather strange.” He said McConnell sounded aware of the speculation around his disappearance and “somewhat frustrated by it,” while also seeming happier to be carrying out rehab at home.
The March of rumors around McConnell’s health has had a simple fuel source: silence. He was rushed to George Washington University Hospital on June 14 after a 911 call suggested he had had a heart attack, was unconscious and had received CPR, and his staff later said he had been released after a health scare. Since then, McConnell and his team have repeatedly declined to answer basic questions about what happened or when he would be back, leaving even a routine update to be filled in by someone outside his office.
Jennings said McConnell was doing rehab at home and cared deeply about the farm bill and the NDAA, two issues he expects to see when the Senate returns on September 14. Jennings also said he had told host Jake Tapper a month ago that McConnell would return to work soon, and on Tuesday he sounded more certain than ever that the senator intends to finish the term he was elected to serve. What remains unresolved is not whether McConnell plans to come back, but why his June 14 hospitalization has still not been explained in plain terms.
