Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) should “absolutely” not remain the GOP minority leader in the Senate following his freezing episodes, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said Wednesday.
“We were just home for a month in my home state of Missouri,” Hawley told reporters. “I was asked everywhere I went about Senator McConnell before the most recent incident — and then absolutely afterwards. I mean, everywhere I went.”
Last week, McConnell’s physician medically cleared the senator to return to work after he froze during a press gaggle in Kentucky, his second scary moment in just over a month after a similar incident occurred at the U.S. Capitol.
WATCH: Mitch McConnell Freezes Mid-Speech, Led Away from Podium
Hawley said McConnell’s heath could be a distraction going into the 2024 election season.
“My view is that 2024 is an awfully important election for Republicans; we should have taken back the Senate last year; we didn’t,” he said. “This is our shot to take it back. I just hope we’re going to be focused on that.”
When asked if he thought McConnell was the wrong person to remain the leader throughout the 2024 midterm cycle, Hawley replied with an emphatic yes.
“Oh absolutely. That’s why I voted against him in December,” he said.
Hawley’s statement comes after news surfaced Tuesday from McConnell’s physician that “no evidence” exists that McConnell suffers from a seizure disorder or suffered strokes during the latest incidents.
The physician previously claimed the event was “not uncommon in concussion recovery and can also be expected as a result of dehydration.”
It is “an inadequate explanation to say this is dehydration,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said, arguing McConnell showed signs of a “focal neurologic event” during his latest freeze.
“It doesn’t mean he can’t serve, but it means that somebody ought to wake up and say, ‘Wow, this looks like a seizure,’” Paul said.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
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