Senator Mitch McConnell has been in the hospital for weeks, and his team has told the public almost nothing.
Now some of his closest allies in Republican media and the Senate are doing the talking for him — and not everyone is buying it.
And a conservative CNN panelist put her own network’s commentator on blast for what she called a strange, coordinated talking point that raised more questions than it answered.
A 20-Minute Call About Iran While a Senator Lies in a Hospital Bed
McConnell, 84, has been in the hospital since June 14, when he was reportedly found unconscious from cardiac arrest. Aides for the senator have refused to say why he was taken to the hospital or why he remains there.
Jennings, a longtime friend of McConnell’s, posted on X and later said on CNN that he spoke with McConnell that morning for almost 20 minutes. And what did two old friends talk about when one of them is recovering from a serious medical episode in a hospital bed? Not his health, apparently.
According to Jennings’ post, they talked “about IRAN, UKRAINE, the unfolding situation in MAINE, my visit to the TR Presidential Library, and even a little bit of Senate history.”
Despite allegedly speaking with the senator, Jennings claimed he only knew what had been publicly reported about McConnell’s health. That is the part that raised eyebrows across the political spectrum.
About 40 minutes after Jennings posted about the call with McConnell, Punchbowl News reported that the senator also spoke with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) about “a variety of topics, including national security.”
Then the pattern got even harder to ignore. Senator John Barrasso’s spokesperson claimed their 20-minute call covered everything from Senate races and the Graham Platner scandal to Supreme Court rulings on coordinated spending limits and the upcoming defense authorization bill.
Three separate Republicans. Three separate 20-minute calls. All on the same day. All covering policy, not health. None of them able to say how McConnell is actually doing.
Brianna Lyman Calls It What It Is
CNN’s own conservative panelist Brianna Lyman was not impressed. Lyman, who did not mention Jennings, Thune, or Barrasso by name, mocked what she called a “weird talking point” they had echoed.
“I think it’s wholly unacceptable,” she said. “I think that the tweets we’ve seen today about these 20-minute phone calls, that everyone has a 20-minute slot, I guess if I was calling someone who was out of commission for a few weeks, I would not ask them about the war, SCOTUS. I probably say, ‘How are you doing?’ But it seemed like a weird talking point that kind of came out for a lot of people on social media.”
That is a fair observation. And it came from someone on Jennings’ own side of the aisle.
During that same edition of CNN NewsNight, host Abby Phillip asked simply, “Why can’t they just say, ‘He had this condition. He’s on the mend. He’s improving.’ Whatever it is, if it is in fact that.”
Jennings, for his part, tried to thread a needle on the transparency question. “If I were laying in a hospital bed, would I want a bunch of people around photographing me? Probably not,” Jennings stated. “Particularly if I were an 84-year-old person who’s normally private about his health.” Jennings said he accepts the “criticism,” noting, “I think it’s a fair question about transparency. I think it’s a fair question about whether they’ve done enough. But ultimately, these office holders, you know, they’re in charge of their own operations.”
That answer might work for a private citizen. McConnell is a sitting United States Senator who holds a vote that affects every American.
The Hypocrisy Problem Nobody Wants to Talk About
Jennings spent years as one of the more vocal critics of the lack of transparency surrounding former President Joe Biden’s health. That history did not go unnoticed when he showed up on CNN defending McConnell’s team for doing the exact same thing.
Newsmax host Rob Finnerty noted that Jennings had “no problem” speculating about President Joe Biden’s health for four years, but “suddenly he doesn’t want to comment on Mitch McConnell’s health because he’s not a medical expert.”
Finnerty opened his show saying, “Nobody heard from Mitch McConnell for three weeks, and today, you talked to him about Iran and the history of the vice presidency and the history of the Senate? What?” He added, “I’m sorry, I don’t buy that at all.”
Finnerty also raised a point that is hard to dismiss. He noted, “We still haven’t seen a photo of Mitch McConnell,” adding, “I don’t think it’s a conspiracy theory to ask for a photo of a United States senator, anything to prove this guy’s doing OK.”
And Finnerty was not alone on that. Breitbart Washington bureau chief Matthew Boyle demanded that McConnell’s office produce proof of the senator’s condition “one way or another right now,” while Glenn Beck posted on X that “it is unacceptable that the party who spent four years criticizing Joe Biden’s health is now silent on McConnell’s.”
The right has a legitimate point here. If transparency is a principle, it has to apply regardless of party. Voters in Kentucky deserve to know whether their senator can do the job they elected him to do. The 20-minute calls about Iran do not answer that question — they just change the subject.
McConnell’s office announced on June 14 that the Kentucky Republican had been hospitalized that morning and was “receiving excellent care,” but it did not disclose the reason for his admission or provide details about the seriousness of his condition. Weeks later, that is still the official story.
Kentucky voters are not asking for a medical file. They are asking for basic honesty from a senator’s office about whether he can still serve. That is not an unreasonable request. And the coordinated rollout of 20-minute phone calls — all on the same afternoon, all focused on policy topics rather than his health — did not answer the question. It just made more people ask it louder.
Brianna Lyman noticed. Finnerty noticed. A lot of ordinary Americans watching this unfold are noticing too.
Sources: Mediaite, TVInsider, Yahoo News, Newsmax/The Daily Beast, Salon, Conservative Brief