The 84-year-old senator’s staff and family have offered virtually no information about his ongoing, weeks-long hospitalization
Credit: SAUL LOEB / AFP via Getty; Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- President Donald Trump claims he also has “no idea” how Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell is doing
- The 84-year-old senator’s staff and family have offered virtually no information about his ongoing, weeks-long hospitalization
- Trump, who has been at odds with McConnell for years, told reporters that he hadn’t spoken to the longtime Republican senator since he was admitted to the hospital on June 14
President Donald Trump said he also has “no idea” how Sen. Mitch McConnell is doing as the Kentucky Republican’s staff and family have offered virtually no information about his ongoing, weeks-long hospitalization.
The president, who has been at odds with McConnell since the end of his first term, told reporters aboard Air Force One on Wednesday, July 8, that he hadn’t spoken to the longtime senator since he was admitted to the hospital on June 14, which was Trump’s 80th birthday.
“I have no idea,” Trump, 80, said as he journeyed back from this week’s NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey. “I have no idea how he’s doing.”
McConnell, 84, has not appeared in public or in photos or videos since he was hospitalized with an undisclosed condition last month. It’s the latest in a long string of health issues and hospital stays for the former Senate Republican leader in recent years.
Credit: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty
His Senate office has issued few statements in the weeks since he was admitted and declined to acknowledge reporting on emergency dispatch audio from June 14 that described an “unconscious” person and “CPR in progress” for a “cardiac arrest” at McConnell’s D.C. address shortly before 9 a.m. local time.
“Senator McConnell appreciates the outpouring of support he’s receiving while he continues his recovery in the hospital,” reads his staff’s most recent public statement, first issued on July 2. “The Senator continues to improve, and is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters while the Senate is out of session.”
McConnell’s wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, broke her silence on Wednesday, issuing a brief statement to multiple outlets, including Louisville CBS affiliate WLKY and The Daily Beast, defending her decision to travel to Beijing for meetings with U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue, Chinese Vice President Han Zheng and others in the days after McConnell’s hospitalization began.
A spokesperson for Chao said “the secretary was on a long-planned trip in China to support her family’s philanthropic endeavors,” but disclosed little about McConnell’s condition other than stating that “the Senator’s health did not warrant an immediate return to the US.”
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On Tuesday, July 7, his staff did claim that he had phone calls with three people between Monday and Tuesday: Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Senate GOP Whip John Barrasso and CNN commentator Scott Jennings.
“When I heard his voice today, and he was clearly keeping up with stuff, that made me happy to hear from him because like everybody else, I’ve been, you know, somewhat in the dark about it,” Jennings, a former McConnell aide, said on CNN on Tuesday evening.
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McConnell’s office did not respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment on Wednesday regarding a letter from Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear that demanded an update on the longest-serving party leader in U.S. Senate history’s health as well as his “ability to hold office in the United States Senate.”
The seven-term senator confirmed in February 2025 that he would not seek reelection this year and would retire from Congress at the end of his term in January 2027. Republican Rep. Andy Barr and former Kentucky state Rep. Charles Booker, a Democrat, are campaigning to replace him.
If McConnell were no longer able to serve in the Senate, Kentucky law requires Beshear to call a special election for voters to select a replacement to serve through the end of his term in January 2027, so long as the vacancy occurs before Aug. 3, according to Axios.
While Trump is eager to protect Senate Republicans’ 53-seat majority, he has previously expressed his desire to see McConnell gone.
“Mitch McConnell, who’s very disloyal to John Thune. You know, John Thune was a very good person for him. I mean, he was a very loyal person,” Trump said during a June 29 Oval Office event. “And Mitch McConnell is against him almost all the time, because he’s angry, I guess, probably at me.”
Credit: Doug Mills-Pool/Getty
Thune succeeded McConnell as the Senate majority leader after the Kentuckian ended his 18-year tenure atop the Senate GOP in early 2025.
“Mitch McConnell’s a bad guy, and… I thought he was lousy at his job, lousy at his job,” Trump said on June 11.
McConnell’s pre-Trump establishment wing has long conceded the direction of the party to the president since his first ascent to the White House in 2016, but his occasional criticisms and denouncement of Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol has led to hostility.
In the years since, Trump has repeatedly attacked McConnell in the press and made racist remarks about Chao, who served as his transportation secretary for the entirety of his first term.
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