Mitch McConnell has been absent from the public eye for three straight months, and on September 14, he finally returned to the scene. The 84-year-old senator rolled up out of his D.C. home in a wheelchair earlier this week, and TMZ was right there to catch it all on tape.
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Cameras caught the Kentucky senator being wheeled out of his house and loaded into a van headed straight for the Capitol, where he was set to cast his first Senate vote since taking a bad fall back in June. McConnell gave a thumbs-up and smiled broadly as he left, looking like a man who knew the whole world had been watching the door.
In his statement on his return, McConnell said, “Today, I’ll cast my first Senate vote since I took a bad fall back in June. I’m really looking forward to being back on the Senate floor and seeing my colleagues.” Speaking more about the road back, he admitted, “my recovery has been a long and often frustrating process, and the lingering effects of childhood polio haven’t made it any easier. I’m still not quite back to 100% …”
This wasn’t just any random appearance either — it marked his first time back in public since he was hospitalized after a fall roughly three months earlier. Before that, all the public really had to go on were scraps: a photo from a rehab facility showing him standing during physical therapy, and not much else.
Behind the scenes, it’s been messier than the video lets on. His wife, Elaine Chao, was reportedly in China when McConnell was first hospitalized in June, and stayed there for several more days while his condition was still unclear. And Chao hasn’t publicly commented on her husband’s return to work, which only added more fuel to a rumor mill that’s been running wild for months.
McConnell’s team is sticking to their story that this is about his long battle with post-polio syndrome, not anything new. His office says the mobility issues trace back to that, and a full medical evaluation reportedly found no fractures, no stroke, no tumor, no cardiac issues.
Still, McConnell told Senate Majority Leader John Thune he’d “do my best to be present for tough votes when our Conference needs me.”