Top US senator breaks silence on health-related absence

US Senator Mitch McConnell, the 84-year-old former Republican leader of the upper chamber, revealed on Sunday that his weeks-long hospitalization had been due to a fall after losing consciousness, with a subsequent bout of pneumonia.

The extended absence of the veteran Kentucky senator had raised much speculation in Washington over his actual condition, and compounded problems for his party's narrow Senate majority.

McConnell was admitted to the hospital on June 14, with his office repeatedly saying afterward that he was "receiving excellent care."

In a statement on Sunday, the senator acknowledged "honest questions" that had been raised about his absence.

"Surviving childhood polio meant spending my entire life with mobility challenges. They haven't exactly gotten easier to manage with age. And last month, I took a fall which landed me in the hospital," he said, adding that doctors confirmed he did not break any bones or suffer a concussion.

"I didn't have a heart attack or a stroke. I don't have any tumors or hemorrhages. But I was briefly unconscious and was taken to the hospital," he said, dismissing rumors of a near-fatal health episode.

He said that while hospitalized he also "had to deal with a mild case of pneumonia."

The senator did not offer a timeline for his return to Congress, having last voted in early June.

"On the advice of my doctors, I won't be able to return to the Senate floor to vote quite yet," he said, noting he had been moved to a rehabilitation center.

The statement was accompanied by a photo of the senator sitting in a medical bed and holding Sunday's Washington Post newspaper, with his wife, former US transportation secretary Elaine Chao, next to him.

McConnell's health has been under close scrutiny for years.

He was hospitalized in 2023 after a fall that left him with a concussion, later froze twice during public appearances, sprained his wrist in another fall last year and spent more than a week in the hospital earlier this year after flu-like symptoms.

McConnell is not seeking reelection and is due to retire in January.

But if he were to resign before then, Kentucky law would require a special election rather than allowing Democratic Governor Andy Beshear to appoint a temporary successor.

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