Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is taking calls from his colleagues and is eager to return to Capitol Hill as he recovers from a concussion suffered earlier this month, a GOP senator said.
(Bloomberg) — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is taking calls from his colleagues and is eager to return to Capitol Hill as he recovers from a concussion suffered earlier this month, a GOP senator said.
John Cornyn of Texas, one of McConnell’s closest friends in the Senate, said he sounds “sharp” but there is no timetable as far as when he would come back.
“He’s chomping at the bit,” Cornyn added.
Cornyn said he urged McConnell, 81, not to rush because the Senate under Democratic control isn’t working on important legislation right now. The chamber this week is debating rolling back legal authorizations underpinning military operations in Iraq, including the invasion that began two decades ago this month.
McConnell, Kentucky’s senior senator, was taken to a hospital earlier this month after he tripped at a private dinner at Washington’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel for the Senate Leadership Fund, a super political action committee aligned with him.
He was discharged from the hospital March 13 and has been at an inpatient rehabilitation facility since.
Senate GOP Whip John Thune of South Dakota said he spoke to McConnell on Tuesday for about five minutes and discussed what’s unfolding on the Senate floor.
“We have a lot of very capable members of our leadership team and so everybody’s kind of stepping up and doing what they can to make sure that we got as I said all the bases covered until he gets back.”
McConnell “sounded good,” Thune added. “I can’t speak to when he’s coming back”
McConnell was first elected to the Senate in 1984 and is now serving his seventh term. He is the longest-serving party leader in Senate history. Before his political career, he worked on Capitol Hill and was an assistant attorney general in the Ford administration.
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