Tangle - Mitch McConnell’s health concerns.

Episode Date: July 9, 2026

Over the past week, lawmakers have expressed increasing concern about Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) health, roughly three weeks after the senator was hospitalized for still-unknown reasons. The hospitalization is the latest in a string of health-related incidents for McConnell, which have raised questions about his fitness for office. On Wednesday, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) asked McConnell’s office to provide a “[full] update” on the senator’s status, citing increasing concern “about the current state of your health and wellbeing.”Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up! Audrey joins the pod.In this week’s episode of Suspension of the Rules, Associate Editor Audrey Moorehead dropped into Managing Editor Ari Weitzman’s chair while he enjoys paternity leave. We discussed the Graham Platner scandal, whether he would actually drop out (we got our answer last night), and why we think the allegations are credible. Then, we talked about Mitch McConnell’s mysterious health issues (a topic we dive into today). Check it out here. You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠ and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Take the survey: Should we have age limits for Congress? Let us know.Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast written by: Isaac Saul and audio engineered and edited by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Lindsey Knuth, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Morning, good afternoon and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul. It is Thursday. The weekend is nigh, my friends. And I can't stop thinking about a recent article in the Atlantic.

I'm just going to read one line in it, quote, nearly 30 percent of, of American adults cannot paraphrase or make inferences from a multi-page text. Thank God for this podcast, because I have no idea how much longer writing and reading will be alive. That being said, if you are listening to this, today we're going to explore Mitch McConnell's health and Congress's broader problem with age. Plus, we have the stories we almost cover this week and some major updates from the Graham Platner campaign. It's a great episode. I'm joined today by Tangle senior editor Will Kayback. Who's going to share the mic with me, and I'll pass it to Will.

Thanks, Isaac. All right, let's get into today's quick hits. Number one, Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, a Democrat, announced he will end his campaign. Two days after a former girlfriend accused him of raping her in 2021. Platner said the allegation was untrue and claimed the Democratic establishment had undermined his candidacy. The main Democratic Party must now select a new nominee by July 27th. Number two, the U.S. military launched a new round of strikes against Iran following President Donald Trump's declaration that the eight-week U.S. Iran ceasefire is now over.

Number three, President Trump said he will permit Ukraine to co-manufacture Patriot missile interceptors, a key resource to defend against Russian ballistic missile strikes. Number four, Apple announced it will invest approximately 30 billion. billion dollars in chip manufacturing in the United States as part of a partnership with chipmaker Broadcom. And number five, President Trump reportedly flew back to the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Summit in Turkey on the old Air Force One aircraft after the Secret Service advised him not to use the new Air Force One, a gift from Qatar, as a security precaution. We have not seen or heard from Senator Mitch McConnell since we first learned of his hospitalization 24 days ago. Rumors about his condition have continued to swirl, especially after

EMS dispatch calls indicated first responders responded to an unconscious person at his Washington, D.C. home on June 14th. Over the past week, lawmakers have expressed increasing concern about Republican Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell's health, roughly three weeks after the senator was hospitalized for still unknown reasons. The hospitalization is the latest in a string of health-related incidents for McConnell, which have raised questions about his fitness for office. On Wednesday, Kentucky Governor Andy Bashir, a Democrat, asked McConnell's office to, quote, provide a full update on the senator's health, citing increasing concern about, quote,

the current state of your health and well-being. McConnell, who's 84 years old, is the longest serving senator in Kentucky history and the 10th longest serving senator in United States history, first winning election to the chamber in 1984. He was the Senate's majority leader from 2015 to 2021 and led the Senate GOP conference from 2007 to 2025. His current term ends in January 27, and he is not seeking re-election. Major questions about McConnell's health first arose in July 23, when the senator abruptly stopped speaking while answering a reporter's question and remained frozen for an extended period. He had a similar incident later that summer. Since then, McConnell has had multiple falls,

some in public, resulting in serious injuries. He has said a childhood bout of polio has hindered his movements in adulthood. In February, he was hospitalized for over a week with what his staff called, quote, flu-like symptoms. On June 14th, McConnell was again hospitalized. Earlier in the day, emergency responders reported performing CPR on an individual experiencing cardiac arrest at the Senator's Washington residents, though they did not confirm by name that it was McConnell. His staff has yet to specify the nature of his hospitalization or his prognosis, but on July 2nd, they said he, quote, continues to improve and is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters while the Senate is out of session. Separately, on Monday, right-wing activist

Laura Lumer claimed that a source close to the Trump administration had told her that McConnell was, quote, officially brain dead and not coming back, end quote. However, on Tuesday, spokespeople for Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Majority Whip, John Barrasso, said both lawmakers had spoken with McConnell this week and had substantive conversations with him. Conservative political commentator Scott Jennings also said he had spoken by phone with McConnell for roughly 20 minutes on Tuesday. If McConnell were to die or resign before the end of his term, a complex vacancy process would

begin, potentially depriving Senate Republicans of a voting member until the November elections. The senator's office has not indicated that he is engraved health or considering resigning at this time. Today we'll share perspectives from the left and right on McConnell's health, followed by executive editor Isaac Saul's take. We'll be right back after this quick break. Many on the left view the mystery about McConnell's well-being as a sign of an unhealthy democracy. Some suggest that concerns over the senator's absence are overblown. Others say McConnell's lack of transparency is unacceptable.

In The Daily Beast, Michael Ian Black argued McConnell's situation is even worse than we think. Imagine if you disappeared from your job for a month. Would you still expect to retain it? Would it be an insult for your employers to ask where the hell you are, or to ask for some proof that you're recovering in the hospital from some ailment? There are three options on the table here. Either McConnell is alive and recuperating, in which case it ought to be easy enough for him to send a freaking Snapchat. He's dead and not recuperating, in which case the law demands a special election.

He's in a vegetative state and unable to fulfill his duties, in which case the law demands a special election. So why don't we know which it is? Like everything with McConnell, the reason for this is as obvious as it is infuriating. Kentucky Republicans are almost certainly trying to drag out McConnell's proof of life as long as possible in order to deny Kentucky voters the opportunity to hold an election to replace him. In a functioning republic, the first question citizens ought to be able to answer for themselves is the simplest one imaginable. Are they alive? The fact that we can't says less about the health of one Mitch McConnell and much more about our own. In the Louisville Courier Journal, Joseph Gertz said

the specifics on Mitch McConnell's health don't matter. If McConnell's family and staff want to say exactly what is going on with him, they can do that if they want. I don't know if they necessarily need to, though. I say this because McConnell is not the president of the United States. Whether or not a president can carry out his duties is of the utmost importance. A senator, not so much. He's one of 100. The Senate will be fine while McConnell's gone. It will be fine if he never returns. Just like it's been fine when every other agent senator has fallen ill and spent time away from the Senate. If McConnell resigns, we really don't know what that means. It used to be that the governor would appoint a replacement who would serve until after the November election. But then the

Republicans in the General Assembly worried that McConnell would die in office, started to muck around with the law in an effort to keep Andy Bashir from appointing a Democrat. I suspect that if McConnell dies or retires because he can't do the job, this whole thing will end up in court. Even if Bashir succeeds in appointing a replacement, the victory will be short-lived. Until then, I don't really care if McConnell's office tells us exactly how he's doing or what he's up to. In his substack, Ken Clippenstein wrote, Mitch McConnell nears deadline. In a political system run by the sage leaders that people like McConnell imagined themselves to be, he would have stepped down so voters could have an orderly election and decide for themselves. Instead, we have a mad dash for

partisan power. Lawmakers have stayed almost completely silent about McConnell's unexplained absence for more than two weeks. During that stretch, he missed more than 20 votes, including a knife-edge resolution to curb Trump's war powers over Iran. The reason is simple. Nobody wants to invite scrutiny of health and fitness in a gerontocracy, especially when members on both sides of the aisle have something to hide. Whatever the truth of his condition, McConnell or his aides have decided that the public doesn't deserve to know what's going on. Yet by their own account, a handful of officials do deserve to know, as well as one insider who worked for McConnell. Scott Jennings, a former McConnell staffer-turned-political commentator, and one of the few non-government figures who claims

to have spoken with him, was asked about the silence on CNN and said, quote, ultimately these office holders, you know, they're in charge of their own operations, end quote. They're in charge, Not the 4 million Kentuckians who have no idea if half their Senate representation is even conscious, not the 300 million Americans who have to live under the decisions he and his colleagues make. Many on the right say McConnell's health challenges are serious, but not yet grave. Some say that McConnell dying or stepping down before August 3rd could upend the GOP caucus. Others suggest that Congress needs stronger requirements for lawmakers' continued participation. In Red State, Jennifer Oliver O'Connell suggested that speculations about McConnell's health

have been greatly exaggerated. Like or dislike McConnell, this stuff about his health condition is not only crazy town, but downright ghoulish. Occam's razor folks, the simplest and most reasonable explanation is probably the right one. McConnell is 84 years old and has had major health challenges and scary falls as of late. Hence, part of the reason why he will be retiring once his term is done. So this unexpected hospital visit and stay could well be for extensive testing and monitoring out of an abundance of caution. At his age, that wouldn't be uncommon or unsurprising. In terms of his Senate seat, unless it is vacated, whether because of incapacity or death, McConnell is the sitting senator from Kentucky, full stop. What all this disbelief, speculation,

conspiracy theories, and prognostication indicate is that it doesn't matter whether it's the Democrat or Republican side of things, few have faith in the ability of their elected officials to be honest about the state of affairs in their party. Even when party leaders attempt to respect privacy and maintain decorum, as in the case of Republican Representative Thomas Keene of New Jersey and his months-long battle with depression, we assume the worst because it usually is. In reason, Robbie Suave said the Republican establishment needs McConnell to hold out until August 3rd. McConnell is retiring, and the standard election to replace him will happen in November. But that's November.

What if, God forbid, McConnell doesn't make it until then? In that case, Kentucky would have to hold a special election to fill the seat. Kentucky is one of the handful of states in which the governor can't just appoint a temporary replacement. It would need to be a special election. And anybody can file to run as an independent in that election. This only applies if it became clear that McConnell needed to be replaced before the cutoff date of August 3rd. At that point, the seat would simply be empty, and McConnell's replacement would be determined via the normal November election. And it's too late for Representative Thomas Massey

or anyone else to run as an independent in that one. It may very well be the case that McConnell's final political gambit is to try to deny Massey the opportunity to channel grassroots outrage into a successful Senate run. If that's what's going on, foes of the establishment have just under a month to unmask this conspiracy. In the federalist, Chris Bray wrote, Congress can't require members to show up or quit. A member of Congress who wins a seat holds that seat and gets the paycheck until he loses an election or decides to give it up. He doesn't have to come to work to have the job. Members of Congress have medical privacy rights, but their constituents have a right to be represented. The conflict between those competing rights keeps coming up. In the most recent example,

President of Tom Keene, a New Jersey Republican, stopped coming to work for four months, offering no explanation for his absence. Not participating in deliberation while serving in deliberative bodies, and not providing representation while holding office in a representative government, members of Congress who wander away from the job face no immediate consequences. They hold the seat long after they lose their ability to do the work. To change that, we would have to get Congress to act. You can see how likely that is.

All right, that is it for what the left and writer's saying. So now I'm going to pass it over to Isaac for his take. All right, that is it for what the left and the writer saying, which brings us to my take. Senator Mitch McConnell is a human being. So every piece of writing about his health should start with some well wishes. I sincerely hope rumors about him being brain dead

or actually dead are false. And I wish him a speedy and full recovery. That said, McConnell should obviously knowing this is a sensitive subject and having fielded repeated accusations of ageism for my early criticisms of President Biden's declining mental acuity in 2021, I want to just state clearly. I'm not advocating for age limits in Congress, nor am I sure how much good they would even do. Not all Octanigerians or non-Anergians are created equal. My grandmother lived to be 97, and she was mentally fit enough in her final days that was just about any task, which was a real

blessing. Yet the halls of Congress are replete with members of Congress in their 70s, 80s, and 90s who simply aren't up for the job anymore. And lawmakers seem to have such a desperate need to hang on to power that it's genuinely rare for any of them to give it up by choice. Consider just the recent examples. Senator Diane Feinstein, the Democrat from California, spent the last few years of her life in Congress avoiding members of the press while her staff covered up her inability to do the job. Her memory was so bad that she regularly expressed confusion about basic Senate functions once asking why Vice President Kamala Harris was presiding over the chamber for a tie-breaking vote. Staff members would whisper in her ear and hand her notes the moment before votes, seemingly

guiding her through her decision-making process. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat and the D.C. delegate is now 89 years old. She seemed hardly capable of interacting with reporters for several years now, yet refuses to resign. Last year, she was scammed out of several thousand dollars by conmen posing as house cleaners, and a police report on the incident said that she was in the early stages of dementia. Former Representative Kay Granger, the Republican from Texas, 83 years old, missed months of votes in 2024 before we found out she'd been suffering from dementia and living in an assisted living facility. Just this spring, Representative Frederica Wilson, the Democrat from Florida, also 83, missed almost a month of votes, did zero press, and gave no update on her health.

When she reemerged in Congress, she said a left eye surgery had prevented her from flying. A couple weeks later, she said she wouldn't run for re-election, but would still serve out her turn. Five members of the 119th Congress have now died in office since 2025. Representative Sylvester Turner, the Democrat from Texas, died after a medical emergency at the age of 70. Representative Raul Grijalva, the Democrat from Arizona, died of complications from lung cancer treatment at the age of 77. Representative Jerry Connolly, the Democrat from Virginia, died of esophageal cancer at the age of 75. Representative Doug Lamoffa, the Republican from California, died of an aortic dissection at the age of 65, and Representative David Scott, the Democrat from Georgia, died at 80 of undisclosed causes following years of speculation about his health.

Also, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, the Democrat of Texas, died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 74 in July of 2024. Right is the 118th Congress wrapped up. The next month, Representative Bill Pasquale, the Democrat from New Jersey, died at the age of 87, following a prolonged hospitalization. This Congress is on pace to surpass the number of deaths in each of the past five congressional sessions. The overall death numbers from the past decade or so have also ticked up compared to 2003. to 2013, when each new session saw just one member at most pass away. All this serves as context for the recent Mitch McConnell episode, and all available evidence suggests McConnell had some kind of major cardiac episode at his home,

collapsed, had to be revived by emergency responders, and has spent the last three weeks in a hospital bed. We know virtually nothing about his current status, which presents its own transparency problem. With that said, I do not trust the quote- quote, journalist Laura Lumer, who reported that McConnell is brain dead. Lumer is more of a right-wing activist than a reporter whose own brain is so addled by conspiracies that she will accuse sitting senators of affairs when they take selfies with their

wives. I certainly trust her less than people like Scott Jennings, the conservative commentator, or Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the Republican from South Dakota, both of whom have said they spoke into McConnell in recent days. Yet this is not some one-off incident. If McConnell were in his 40s, 50s, or 60s, or we're in his 80s, but with a totally clean health record and the acuity of someone like, say, Senator Bernie Sanders, I might advocate to give him the time and space to recover. But that is not the situation we have. For all the talk of President Biden's fitness throughout his term, much of which I participated in, the former president never froze in public without speaking or moving for over 30 seconds. Just go watch the videos of that happening

to McConnell twice in the span of a month in 2023, and let me know. if you think he's up for the job. That was three years ago, by the way, and I was calling for McConnell to step down then, or for Congress to institute term limits. Those quote-unquote freezing episodes, which were always an oddly euphemistic name for what looked like back-to-back medical emergencies, or the sort of incidents that would prompt you to rush a parent friend or colleague to the hospital and then take away their car keys. McConnell also has had several falls recently and is regularly seen on camera, much like the late Senator Feinstein, receiving direct instructions from his staff on his movements,

actions, and statements. Anyone who has spent time with the elderly recognizes these signs as indications that a person needs some extra care at home, the kind of care, I think it's fair to say a member of Congress should not need to receive while serving. Pointing this out is so taboo that the few reporters who do typically get an onslaught of angry emails from congressional staff and even other reporters. So let me repeat.

This is not about age. It's about the capacity to do the job. I can empathize with someone like McConnell, whose career was mostly defined by being in control, not wanting to accept that his time has come or resisting calls to step down. One day, God willing, I'll be in my 80s or 90s and maybe still talking publicly about politics.

And if it looks like I'm slipping or incapable of doing the work without serious assistance, I hope someone with enough wisdom them around me will rip this microphone from my cold dead hands and good luck to you trying. But that's just it. The fact that nobody around McConnell has guided him to the exit at any point in the last few years is a genuine travesty, and it appears he nearly died in office just months before his long-delayed retirement. There is a fine line between respecting your elders or respecting institutions like Congress and ignoring natural issues that come with aging and the press and many

political operatives regularly seem to be on the wrong side of this one. McConnell is just one of many members of Congress who are holding onto their job too long, motivated by either their own clinging to power or the insistence of those around them that they can't afford for them to retire. In this case, given McConnell's history of procedural manipulation, I think it's fair to wonder if he's trying to avoid a vacant Republican seat for a few months heading into the November elections. Whatever is let up to this point, the senator has an opportunity to lead by example, and he should. Rather than leave Republicans with an incapacitated member for the next month or several months,

he should resign now and let whatever process is supposed to play out, play out. Anything less than that is just more ugly precedent for a very ugly and uncomfortable trend that has been ailing Congress for years. All right, that is it for my take. I'm going to send it back to Will Kay back for the rest of the pod. I'll see you guys tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace. We'll be right back after this quick break. Thanks, Isaac. And now here is the Road Not Taken, which is a weekly feature we've added on Thursday,

talking through some of the coverage decisions that we made throughout the week. We started the week debating whether to cover President Trump's appeal to FIFA to lift the red card suspension of U.S. soccer player Fuller and Balligan to allow him to play in the team's World Cup match against Belgium on Monday. FIFA did just that, and it sparked a global controversy, pushing this sport-centric story into the political realm. We held off on covering to see how the match went and what balligan's impact would be, and after the U.S. was handily beaten, the fur died down considerably, and we didn't think that the topic merited a full edition. Otherwise, our coverage choices this week were fairly straightforward and dictated by the

stories driving the most commentary on the right and left. Next week, we've got our eye on an Iran war update, President Trump's NATO summit appearance, and the Michigan Senate primary as potential main topics on Monday or Tuesday. And one other dark horse, Tucker Carlson's announcement that he plans to help establish a new political party. And last but not least, here is our Have a Nice Day story. Among the provisions at Ethan Seth and Jonathan Milkey's lemonade stand at a farmer's market in Rogers City, Michigan, were hand-painted rocks, fresh produce, and of course, homemade lemonade. The three brothers could count on between $100 and $200 each summer from their stand,

but last season they were forced to stop. The market's new management told them that they would need a temporary food license to continue selling, costing nearly $400. Early this year, the boys delivered handwritten letters to state representative Cam Cavett Republican, who vowed to work on the issue. He introduced House Bill 6-007, a bipartisan bill that would allow minors to run lemonade stands that made $5,000 or less a year. On June 25th, two weeks after the brothers testified at a committee hearing, the State House unanimously passed the bill. The Washington Post has this story, and we'll drop the link to it in today's show notes.

All right, that is it for today's edition. Thanks for being with us, as always, for a jam-packed week of news. We'll talk to you tomorrow for our Friday edition. Until then, have a great day. And peace. Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Wall. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas.

Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kovac and associate editors Audrey Moorhead, Lindsay Canuth, and Bailey Saul. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at retangle. com.