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Senator Mitch McConnell said that he was feeling okay, after he froze up in the middle of a press conference on Wednesday, July 26. The Republican politician from Kentucky returned to the podium where he was making his speech, after being escorted away, and he told reporters that he was “fine.”
After taking a few minutes away, a CNN reporter asked the 81-year-old senator if the extended and unexpected pause had to do with his fall back in March. McConnell responded, “No, I’m fine,” according to CNN. An aide for McConnell later explained that he “felt lightheaded and stepped away for a moment,” to the news network. “He came back to handle Q and A, which as everyone observed was sharp,” they said.
In the video, which you can see here, McConnell appeared to be mid-sentence when he stopped talking out of nowhere. After he had frozen up for nearly 20 seconds, fellow Republican Senators Joni Ernst (IA) and Jon Barasso (WY) approached him to check if he was okay. “Hey Mitch, anything else you want to say? Or should we just go back to your office? Do you want to say anything else to the press?” Barasso could be heard saying to him as he walked away. As McConnell walked away, Ernst reportedly made the sign of the cross on herself.
The freeze-up comes about four months after McConnell suffered a concussion after falling at a Washington D.C. hotel on March 8. The Kentucky senator spent a few days in the hospital for treatment, before he was discharged on March 13. He underwent some rehab treatment following the fall. The Republican completed rehab on March 25 and returned to the Senate in mid-April. As he made his return, he made a joke about his fall and return. “It’s good to be back,” he said, per ABC News. “Suffice to say, this wasn’t the first time being hard-headed has served me very well.”
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