Senate Minority Chief Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was defiant on Wednesday, disregarding requires him to step down as chief of his convention after he froze in entrance of reporters final week.
“I’m going to finish my term as leader and I’m going to finish my Senate term,” McConnell stated at a packed weekly press convention on Capitol Hill.
McConnell supplied no new particulars about his well being situation and declined to say precisely what had bothered him. He stated he had “nothing to add” to a letter from the U.S. Capitol attending doctor that cleared him to renew his duties within the higher chamber.
Brian Monahan, the attending doctor, stated in a be aware launched by McConnell’s workplace earlier this week there isn’t a proof the 81-year-old senator skilled a stroke or has a seizure dysfunction following his second freeze-up in Kentucky final week.
The physician’s be aware appeared to fulfill the overwhelming majority of the Senate Republican Convention, which expressed help for McConnell this week. However one GOP senator voiced skepticism about Monahan’s prognosis.
“When you get dehydrated, you don’t have moments when your eyes look in the distance with a vacant look and you’re sort of basically unconscious with your eyes open,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who’s an ophthalmologist.
Paul stated he wasn’t questioning whether or not McConnell is ready to lead, however as a substitute, the prognosis itself: “It has nothing to do with his fitness to serve and whether he’s doing a good job or a bad job.”
Earlier on Wednesday, McConnell addressed his GOP colleagues behind closed doorways about his well being, telling them his cognitive skill just isn’t impaired. The senator stated he was given a “clean bill of health” by docs, in keeping with Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.). McConnell additionally informed his colleagues he has solely skilled freezing episodes twice.
“I was satisfied,” Sen. Todd Younger (R-Ind.) stated afterward.
