A photo of Mitch McConnell and his wife Elaine Chao displayed in his Capitol Hill office.
Photo: Finn Gomez/Getty Images
Mitch McConnell’s health has become such a big mystery that even Republican elected officials and MAGA influencers are demanding proof that the Kentucky senator is alive and (relatively) well.
Instead, the only update we got today was new video of McConnell being loaded into an ambulance on a stretcher almost a month ago.
We first learned that the former Senate Majority Leader was ill on Sunday, June 14, when his press secretary, David Popp, said in a brief statement: “Senator McConnell was hospitalized this morning. He is receiving excellent care.”
McConnell’s office has yet to say why the 84-year-old senator was hospitalized. But an audio recording of a dispatch call that surfaced earlier this month showed emergency medical personnel were called to McConnell’s Washington, D.C., home at 8:36 a.m. on June 14 because an “unconscious man” was in possible “cardiac arrest.” The medic called said, “CPR is being performed.”
CNN has now obtained video of the ambulance response filmed by McConnell’s neighbors. The short video shows someone being loaded into an ambulance on a stretcher. Only their motionless leg is visible.
@cnn
A neighbor of Senator Mitch McConnell shared a video with CNN from the morning of June 14 showing a man being carried on a stretcher to an ambulance. The video shows McConnell’s home the day his team said he was hospitalized, and a neighbor said another witness reported the man on the stretcher was McConnell.
♬ original sound – CNN – CNN
A neighbor told CNN they answered the door on the morning of June 14 to find their street blocked off by two ambulances, a fire truck and Capitol Police officers. Officers said there was a “medical emergency” but would not confirm McConnell was being treated, saying they would close the street to anyone.
Other witnesses told a neighbor that McConnell was lying on a stretcher and was not wearing an oxygen mask:
“He’s on a stretcher and wearing what looks like an orange foam blanket,” the neighbor said. The neighbor said they looked at McConnell’s legs, which were bare and – for a moment – “not moving.”
The neighbor said that although they did not see McConnell’s face, others in the neighborhood did.
“One of my neighbors was like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s Mitch, I saw his face,'” the neighbor told CNN.
The neighbor also noted that the rescuers worked quickly, but did not seem to panic:
“In a situation where perhaps time is of the essence, there seems to be a little more urgency, but there was no urgency here,” a neighbor told CNN.
As the ambulances left the street, a neighbor said they didn’t have their sirens on.
McConnell’s office said he “continues to improve” but did not provide any details about his health. Three of McConnell’s friends and colleagues – Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Sen. John Barrasso and CNN pundit Scott Jennings – said they had lengthy phone conversations with the senator during his hospitalization and he is eager to get back to work. Earlier this week, a spokesman for Elaine Chao, McConnell’s wife of 33 years, said she traveled to China on June 14 and the senator’s “health does not require immediate return to the United States.”
View all
Subscribe to the Intelligencer newsletter
Daily news on the politics, business and technology shaping our world.
Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice