Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Bloomberg via Getty Images
It’s clear that Mitch McConnell’s allies would really like to shut down the wild rumors about his health — especially Laura Loomer’s claim that he is “brain dead” and will never return to the Senate. On Tuesday, a day after the MAGA influencer made this morbid claim on X, three of McConnell’s pals — Senator Majority Leader John Thune, Senator John Barrasso, and CNN pundit Scott Jennings — claimed they’d just had lengthy phone chats with the Kentuckian.
Then Elaine Chao, McConnell’s wife of 33 years, issued her own statement and made the whole saga even stranger.
The 84-year-old former Republican majority leader has been in the hospital for three weeks. His spokesperson announced that he was “admitted to the hospital” on June 14 and later said he “continues to improve.” There’s been no official word on why McConnell was hospitalized or what his condition is. But an EMS dispatch call revealed that on the morning of June 14, an ambulance was called to McConnell’s Washington, D.C., home because an “unconscious person” was in possible “cardiac arrest,” and medics performed CPR.
So, where was Elaine Chao amid all this health drama? Initially, it seemed like she headed off to China days after McConnell’s hospitalization. A photo released by the Chinese Embassy showed her meeting with Chinese vice-president Han Zheng on June 17 in Beijing.
However, in her first statement on McConnell’s health, Chao said she was already overseas when he was hospitalized and saw no reason to cut her trip short.
Chao’s spokesperson released the statement to WLKY on Tuesday.
“The secretary was on a long-planned trip in China to support her family’s philanthropic endeavors,” it said. “During the trip, she met with a number of people, including the US ambassador. The Senator’s health did not warrant an immediate return to the US.”
Press releases seem to confirm that Chao was in China before McConnell’s hospitalization. Shanghai Jiao Tong University released a photo of the former Trump administration Transportation secretary meeting with school officials on June 12. Chao also appeared with Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs president Wu Ken on June 16.
Chao’s spokesperson said she’s now back in the U.S., per WLKY:
They added that Chao has since returned from her trip to China and is back in the U.S. Her staff did not say if she’s been in contact with McConnell since returning home.
It seems Chao’s statement was meant to downplay the seriousness of McConnell’s condition. Cardiac arrest? Brain dead? His health issues weren’t even bad enough to derail her trip! But even if the most extreme health rumors are untrue, we know that McConnell has been in the hospital for three weeks. Isn’t that fact enough reason for Chao to fly home early? She is not a government official, and it doesn’t sound like she was dealing with an urgent national-security matter.
Even the governor of Kentucky is now asking for more information on McConnell’s health status. If it’s really not that serious, why can’t anyone in the senator’s circle give us a clear answer?
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