Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is directly asking Sen. Mitch McConnell, the state’s most powerful figure in Congress, to disclose more about his condition after three weeks of silence from the 84-year-old since he was hospitalized in Washington.
The letter released Wednesday from Beshear, a Democrat who is considered a potential presidential candidate in 2028, to the former Senate Republican leader says “Kentuckians have grown increasingly concerned about the current state of your health and well-being, and ability to hold office.”
McConnell, whose physical condition has visibly declined in recent years, was hospitalized June 14. He has not released a public statement, photos or videos since. Aides have disclosed nothing specific about his condition, other than to say last week that McConnell “continues to improve, and is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters while the Senate is out of session.”
That lack of detail has fueled rampant speculation about his prognosis and whether he will return to the Senate when it reconvenes next week. The firestorm was enough that Republican Senate leaders on Tuesday made public statements saying they had talked to McConnell and that he was alert and discussing current events.
McConnell is retiring at the end of his term in January, and the campaign to elect his successor already is underway. Kentucky’s Senate succession law, which Republican legislators have twice changed during Beshear’s tenure, does not give the governor a role in picking a temporary successor should McConnell’s seat become vacant before his term ends.
Under the latest change in 2024, if the seat becomes vacant before Aug. 3, there would be a special election to pick a replacement, perhaps held concurrently with the general election in November. The special election winner could take office nearly immediately. The general election winner would be sworn in as part of the new Congress in January.
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I hate that these people act like they have better things to do than walk into the hospital and find out for themselves. What is stopping him or a democratic senator from going to the hospital with a camera and finding out for themselves. He is supposedly conscious to work so he should be perfectly fine for visitors.
Beshear IS finding out for himself, and for Kentucky, in a legally accountable way. For a governor, that is absolutely the correct way.
Between the change in how Kentucky fills a vacant office that McConnell himself pushed through in 2024 and the current R attempts to hide McConnell's true condition, when the lawsuits roll -- and they absolutely will -- a letter goes a hell of a lot farther than a visit.
I am willing to bet Beshear gives far more of a personal shit about how to end the situation that he and the rest of Kentucky are being held hostage to by McConnell's true condition than about seeing the guy in a hospital bed.
Here's the letter, for anyone who wants to read it for themselves; note that it was sent to McConnell's Senate address in DC, the address where McConnell's legal correspondence as US Senator would be directed, and is addressed to him not personally, but in that senatorial legal capacity. This isn't a get-well-soon note, though it may initially appear that way; it is a courteously and very carefully worded legal notice:
https://governor.ky.gov/attachments/20260708_McConnell-Letter.pdf
HIPAA. Apart from anything else, the hospital would stop them. You don't get to visit someone in the hospital unless the patient wants you to.
Know any hospitals they enforce that at? The ones I've been to, if you know the room number you can go up
Room number and name. You can't just say I want to go to room 203.
The hospitals you know must be pretty bad.
Where I work you can go to the lobby or the gift shop, but you can't get into a patient area without permission. The doors won't open for you.
Same goes for hospitals where I've visited family. I have to call in from the panel at the door to get someone from the nurse's station to let me in.
Not for a sitting senator…
I bet there is HEAVY security around his room. Or possibly the morgue.
Underground command center
HIPPA probably. He's probably not in a room accessible to the general public and though the governor might be able to get access using his position, disclosing anything learned from that access would likely violate HIPPA. And I'm sure Trump would love for that to happen. It's possible he's even keeping quiet just to bait something like that.