After experience his now-second public freezing episode last week, Mitch McConnell announced at a press conference that he has no intention of leaving office before the completion of his term. The senator experience his latest episode at an event in Kentucky where he once again froze for at least 30 seconds in the middle of speaking and was escorted away by aides. The episode occurred just a few weeks after a similar incident while addressing reporters at the Capitol.
According to CBS News, McConnell’s physician released a report attributing the episodes to dehydration and a concussion that the senator experienced earlier in the year. The report ruled out seizures, strokes, or Parkinson’s disease. However, that hasn’t stymied the calls for McConnell to resign from office, including from members of his own party.
The Kentucky senator, however, will not be stepping down. Via Mediaite:
“What do you say to those who are calling on you to step down? Do you have any plans to retire any time soon,” a reporter asked McConnell.
“I have no announcements to make on that subject. But what do you say to those who are. I’m going to finish my term as leader and I’m going to finish my Senate term,” the GOP lawmaker concluded.
McConnell’s health has been questioned by Republicans Rand Paul, Matt Gaetz, and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Paul, in particular, has called out the conclusions drawn by McConnell’s physician, but stopped short of calling for the Kentucky senator to resign.
“I think it’s an inadequate explanation to say this is dehydration,” Paul told reporters this week. “It doesn’t look like dehydration to me. It looks like a focal neurologic event. That doesn’t mean it’s incapacitating, 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.'”
(Via Mediaite)