Former Senate leader Mitch McConnell hospitalized, but few details are known
WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was admitted to a hospital Sunday, his spokesperson said, but there was no immediate information about why he was there or his prognosis.
McConnell, 84, was the longest-serving Senate leader in history before stepping aside from that role while finishing his final term, which ends in January.
“Senator McConnell was admitted to the hospital this morning. He is receiving excellent care,” spokesperson David Popp said in a statement without elaboration. It was not immediately clear whether McConnell was in Washington, Kentucky or elsewhere.
McConnell’s health has been a subject of scrutiny for years.
He fell and sprained his wrist while walking out of a GOP luncheon in December 2024. He was hospitalized with a concussion in March 2023 and missed several weeks of work after falling in a Washington hotel. After he returned, he twice froze up during news conferences that summer, staring vacantly ahead before colleagues and staff came to his assistance.
McConnell had polio in his early childhood, and he has long acknowledged some difficulty as an adult in walking and climbing stairs. In addition to his 2023 fall, he tripped and fell in 2019 at his home in Kentucky. He had surgery for a fractured shoulder.
McConnell was first elected to the Senate in 1984 and was the Republican leader from 2007 until 2025, serving as both majority and minority leader during that period.
He remains active in the Senate, showing up for work when the chamber is in session, and recently chairing public hearings and grilling officials from his perch as chair of the Senate appropriations subcommittee on defense. He has intermittently used a wheelchair to navigate the Capitol and is routinely accompanied by his security detail, as a former congressional leader.
