Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., froze again. This time it was during a news conference Wednesday in Covington, Kentucky. For 30 seconds, he stood silently at the lectern after he was asked whether he intended to run for re-election in 2026. It was the second time in a month that McConnell has been rendered mute and motionless in the middle of answering questions from the media.
When it happened last month, neither McConnell nor anyone around him offered any explanation beyond a report from aides that he’d felt “lightheaded.” They gave no indication that the 81-year-old Senate Republican leader had seen a doctor after the Senate GOP leadership’s weekly news conference, where he’d had to be led away from the cameras. We’re told that he went right back to work that evening.
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