Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell moved behind the scenes to reassure his allies and donors he can do his job after he froze for the second time in as many months in public – even as questions persist over how long the 81-year-old Kentuckian will stay as Republican leader.

McConnell, who has served for 16 years as the GOP leader, the longest of any Senate leader in history, has repeatedly made clear he’s staying in his job until the end of next year when the 118th Congress ends – something his confidantes say hasn’t changed even after his recent health scares.

But McConnell has consistently sidestepped questions about whether he would run for leader in the next Congress, which begins in 2025.

Following a recent concussion after falling and hitting his head in March, coupled with his two public frozen moments, Republican senators and aides told CNN they are doubtful he will try to run for the job again – potentially opening up the GOP leadership role for the first time since McConnell took the reins in 2007.

  • aidan@lemmy.worldM
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    1 year ago

    As much as people make fun of when people say this, this really is a “both sides” problem. Celebrating Biden tripping is wrong, celebrating Trump tripping is wrong- same with mental health issues. But, Trump was attacked for mental health in 2020 with the whole cognitive test incident, so I don’t think it’s fair to act like it’s entirely one sided. Ultimately it should be up to voters to decide whether their representative is fit, not an impeachment committee. Also, personally I prefer someone with memory issues but is representing what I vote for than someone who is perfectly neurotypical but contradicts my beliefs.

    • MrJameGumb@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Trump was made fun of because he went on national television to brag about how he aced a test that proved he could identify shapes and colors and pictures of cartoon animals.

      • aidan@lemmy.worldM
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        1 year ago

        It was a memory test, IIRC he was talking about the results because of accusations of dementia before he took the test.

        • MrJameGumb@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yes, I believe the issue was that he seemed to be saying “look, I don’t have full on dementia and that proves definitively that I’m fit to lead an entire country”

          He was really setting the bar pretty high there

          • aidan@lemmy.worldM
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            1 year ago

            I mean yeah ideally the bar would be pretty high to depose an elected office undemocratically.

    • PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Bro, Trump doesn’t have to trip over shit. I don’t care how that dude does or does not walk. Have you ever heard words come out of his mouth?

      This word vomit was choked out in 2016 and mother fucker never decided to prove afterwards that he was just not feeling it that day. He never redeemed himself. He’s had 7 fucking years to show us otherwise. He hasn’t. Dude is legit missing something in his body that is very crucial in forming a coherent sentence.

      “Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you’re a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are — nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible.”

      The problem here is that is not a one off. It’s not a fluke. He just is like that 100% of the time and love the guy, hate the guy, whatever, but that should never be allowed anywhere near nuclear weapons. It is just unsafe to 9 billion other people. It’s not okay. It’s fucking terrifying.

      • Gork@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        That word salad is so bad that apparently foreign news organizations had a hard time translating it into other languages.

        • yata@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Nevermind other languages, they have problems just translating it into English. There was the infamous A.P. interview back in 2017 where they had to write “unintelligible” several times throughout the interview when quoting what he said.

    • Kalcifer@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      You claim that you believe that there is a problem with elected officials being incompetent, and yet you then contradict yourself by stating that you are part of the problem:

      personally I prefer someone with memory issues but is representing what I vote for than someone who is perfectly neurotypical but contradicts my beliefs.

      You are correct that the voters have the power to change their representatives if they are found to be incompetent, so use it. Don’t fall victim to the ostrich effect.

      • aidan@lemmy.worldM
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        1 year ago

        You claim that you believe that there is a problem with elected officials being incompetent,

        I don’t know where I said that to be honest. but I don’t know that I would agree that its always clear based on someones behavior in publicly speaking that they are incompetent as a president.

        • syrooks@infosec.pub
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          1 year ago

          What do you mean you don’t know where you said that? It was the comment the other person directly replied to… the last sentence…

        • Kalcifer@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Every time a liberal gets a head cold the republicans start screaming that they’re not physically capable to hold office anymore, but Mitch McConnell can have a stroke on live tv in the middle of a debate and they’re ready to give him another year […]

          As much as people make fun of when people say this, this really is a “both sides” problem. […]

          You quite evidently agreed that there is a problem with incompetence, as the previous user pointed out.

            • Kalcifer@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              Hm, I would be very hesitant to say that the voters are enjoying the fact that their representatives are in poor health. Unless you are inferring that jests directed at one side for voting in an individual who is in poor health is “reveling in politicial opponents bad health”.

              • aidan@lemmy.worldM
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                1 year ago

                Hm, I would be very hesitant to say that the voters are enjoying the fact that their representatives are in poor health.

                What do you mean? I’m saying saying most voters enjoy their own representatives poor health.

                Unless you are inferring that jests directed at one side for voting in an individual who is in poor health is “reveling in politicial opponents bad health”.

                That’s not how I would interpret it- but that may be how you do.

                • Kalcifer@lemm.ee
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                  1 year ago

                  What do you mean? I’m saying saying most voters enjoy their own representatives poor health.

                  Yeah, that’s what I just said that you said.