What Happened to Mitch McConnell?
His episode in a press conference prompts a lot more questions about very old people in Washington.
Well, Mitch McConnell might have momentarily lost his ability to speak, but he didn’t lose his sense of humor.
After the Senate Republican leader froze during a press conference Wednesday, Joe Biden called to check on him. “I got sandbagged,” McConnell says he told the president. That was a reference to Biden’s own joke after he fell at the U.S. Air Force Academy last month, claiming he tripped over a misplaced sandbag.
In all seriousness, we can’t help but wonder if McConnell suffered a stroke right there in public, on camera. It was sad and alarming to watch the 81-year-old slur his words, fade to silence mid-sentence, and then stare blankly ahead for 20 seconds before Senate John Barrasso intervened and gently led him away from the podium.
🚨BREAKING: Mitch McConnell freezes up at a press conference. Reason unknown.
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 26, 2023
pic.twitter.com/KAOCzqA0aa
Aides later said McConnell admitted to feeling “light-headed” before his remarks, and earlier this year he suffered a concussion and a broken rib in a fall, needing weeks to recover. He reportedly fell again just a couple of weeks ago. But McConnell also came back to the press conference a few minutes later, insisting, “I’m fine.”
Asked whether he’d spoken to McConnell since the episode, 89-year-old Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley gave his youthful colleague a ringing endorsement: “He was with me on the Senate floor last night about 9:30, 10 o'clock. He was, uh, very, uh, strong in everything that he was doing. And, uh, he’s a good leader, and we need to keep him leading the Republicans in the United States Senate.”
We certainly wish Senator McConnell well.
The episode naturally brings up bigger questions about not just McConnell’s health but that of a number of other legislators — not to mention the president — who are in their 80s or even 90s.
We all know how cognitively disabled Joe Biden has become. Nancy Pelosi is little better — the 83-year-old former speaker has been incoherently bungling her way through remarks for years now. She joked the other day that Biden is “a kid to me” and insisted that “age is relative.” Besides, “The leader on the other side is not much younger,” she added. “I don’t like to use his name, but you know who I mean.” For Pelosi to so coyly avoid naming Donald Trump is behavior fitting for middle school, so yeah, maybe age is relative.
Senator Dianne Feinstein has likewise been scrutinized of late. The 90-year-old Californian has been in such poor health that her staff finally announced earlier this year that she won’t run for reelection. We say “her staff” because after her office released the retirement statement, she told a reporter, “I haven’t released anything.” Reminded of the statement by a staffer, Feinstein replied, “I should have known they put it out.”
It’s not just the handful of aforementioned legislators who are a bit long in the tooth. “Congress is older than ever,” headlined NPR after last November’s election. According to the Pew Research Center, “The new Senate’s median age … is 65.3 years,” the oldest ever. “In Congress overall, older generations — that is, Baby Boomers (born 1946-64) and the Silent Generation (1928-45) — constitute 54% of all members.” Thirty members were born before the end of World War II, and another 264 are Boomers.
Beyond the obvious age requirements for service, Congress is so old in part because America is older than ever. Life expectancy is high, so there just are more older people still with us. That’s a wonderful thing for passing on wisdom from previous generations, if only more Americans will let go of obsessing over youth and instead learn to prize that age and wisdom.
The downside when it comes to Congress is really twofold. We’re increasingly “represented” by people in such frail health that they need to be led away from podiums and pushed around in wheelchairs. And that’s true because of the second part — power incentives for staying in Congress way past prime time.
Think of that professional athlete who plays one too many seasons because he just can’t hang up the cleats. Knowing when to call it a career is a really hard decision to make. None of us should want to get to the point when others have to make that decision for us. That may be doubly true for the people who are supposed to represent us and make hugely consequential decisions affecting future generations.
