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                    "commentary\n        \n    McConnell returns from three-month absence, to DC's surprise. But many questions remain\n    \n                    \n                \n                            \n                    Published\n                    \n                        September 17, 2026 9:00AM (EDT)                    \n                \n                    \n    \n\n    \n        \n            \n            Sen. Mitch McConnell arrives for a vote at the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 14, 2026. It was his first public appearance in more than 90 days. (Finn Gomez/Getty Images)        \n    \n    \n            \n            \n\n            \n            \n    \n        A version of this essay first appeared in\u00a0Crash Course, Salon's free morning newsletter.\u00a0Sign up for early access to articles like this, plus more of Salon\u2019s bold journalism on how policies, movements and culture wars affect real people.    \n    \n            Sen. Mitch McConnell is back \u2014 but is he really? After three months of total absence from the public eye, that\u2019s the question many are asking about the Kentucky Republican. In June, McConnell suffered from a \u201cbad fall\u201d that left him hospitalized. For months, rumors circulated that he had actually died, was on life support or was otherwise incapacitated. McConnell, who became the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history before relinquishing that role last year, is now 84. He\u2019s had serious health issues in recent years, such as freezing up during a press conference in 2023, an incident also blamed on a fall.\nDuring McConnell\u2019s prolonged absence, during which he still collected a paycheck, there was virtually no public info on his condition. A few images were released, but no video or audio that made clear he was able to speak, let alone fulfill his duties as a lawmaker. Many observers, including Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, assumed he would never return to the Senate.\n\nSo to see McConnell being pushed around the U.S. Capitol in a wheelchair on Monday, as the Senate returned for its final legislative sprint ahead of the midterms, came as a shock to many observers. He even voted on something! I\u2019m sure it was important, whatever it was. I didn\u2019t check.\u00a0\nYet some people still aren\u2019t convinced he\u2019s really back, or at least not in any meaningful sense. A 10-second video of the press yelling at McConnell to speak or give a thumbs up \u2014 with seemingly zero response from the senator \u2014 has gone viral. Even Trump acolyte Laura Loomer shared it, saying \u201cMitch is brain dead. You can\u2019t look at his face and say he\u2019s not a vegetable. He\u2019s not even responding to cognition tests. It\u2019s like wheeling a corpse around. Worse than what the Democrats did with Joe Biden to be honest. He looks incapacitated.\u201d\n\nStart your day with essential news from Salon.\nSign up for our free morning newsletter, Crash Course.\n\nOther MAGA sympathizers have echoed these remarks, often invoking Biden or the film \u201cWeekend At Bernie\u2019s.\u201d Judging from the clip, McConnell has the demeanor of someone recovering from anesthesia: He\u2019s staring straight ahead with a fixed smile. But if you watch the full clip from TMZ, he actually offers a small wave and a thumbs-up before being loaded into a van, although he doesn\u2019t speak. At least we can confirm he has retained some motor skills, and it\u2019s possible he couldn\u2019t hear the press yelling at him or just decided to ignore them.\n\nMcConnell blamed his slow recovery on the \u201clingering effects of childhood polio.\u201d Perhaps that\u2019s true. Perhaps he\u2019ll live another decade, reverse his announced retirement and keep on promoting Trump\u2019s agenda while enjoying the taxpayer-funded healthcare he\u2019s worked so hard to deny for other Americans.\n\nI also watched video of McConnell on the Senate floor during the vote, when he didn\u2019t seem to do or say anything. Then I asked myself why I was playing Mitch-truther in the first place. Even if I were a doctor, I wouldn\u2019t be able to diagnose him via random clips on the internet. Loath as I am to disagree with Loomer on anything (please read my sarcasm carefully), we really don\u2019t know much about McConnell\u2019s health.\nIn a statement on X, McConnell said he still wasn\u2019t \u201cquite back to 100%,\u201d and blamed his slow recovery on the \u201clingering effects of childhood polio.\u201d Perhaps that\u2019s true and perhaps he\u2019ll live another decade, reverse his announced retirement and keep on promoting Trump\u2019s agenda while enjoying the taxpayer-funded healthcare he\u2019s worked so hard to deny for other Americans. Or maybe the internet trolls and meme-crafters are right and he\u2019s basically a potato with no agency, a \u201cshell\u201d of his \u201coriginal self,\u201d to paraphrase the way Donald Trump recently described the Supreme Court justices he installed.\n\nBeshear said that he\u2019s glad to see that McConnell has returned to work, but argued that more transparency is necessary. \u201cI still think he has an obligation to prove to the people of Kentucky that he has the capacity to represent us and represent us well. That means being able to come day after day, to serve on committees,\u201d Beshear told LEX News on Tuesday.\nOn the one hand, it\u2019s somewhat terrifying that someone with as much power and responsibility as McConnell can dip out for almost an entire summer while still dictating how other Americans may live their lives. The secrecy and lack of transparency around McConnell is fueling all sorts of understandable questions. But we don\u2019t need to make assumptions about someone\u2019s mental or physical state to understand that term limits, or perhaps even age limits, for Congress may be necessary, or that McConnell\u2019s tenure has been marked by pandering to corporations, blind support for war, and the deregulation of polluters and big political donors at the expense of regular people. It\u2019s ludicrous that we sometimes need to check politicians for a pulse, but we should also check whether they have a soul.\n\n\n                \n            \n                \n        \n            Related Topics            \n                ------------------------------------------            \n        \n        \n    \n            \n\n    \n        \n            Related Articles"
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