Mitch McConnell was escorted out of the Capitol in a wheelchair at the Capitol on Wednesday after the 82-year-old senator fell twice in short succession.
One of McConnell’s falls occurred on stairs outside the Senate chamber, causing “panicked looks to flash across his congressional staff and security detail,” reported The Hill.
A group, which included his Republican colleagues Steve Daines and Markwayne Mullin, reportedly rushed to surround McConnell and help him back to his feet. He was able to walk on his own to a Senate lunch, but he fell again during the lunch meeting.
Capitol Police helped close off a hallway to allow McConnell to privately return to his old Capitol office, which is now occupied by his successor, Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
“Senator McConnell is fine,” his spokesman Dave Popp said later. “The lingering effects of polio in his left leg will not disrupt his regular schedule of work.”
A source close to the senator said the wheelchair is being used for precautionary purposes.
McConnell, the third oldest member of the Senate, who will turn 83 on Feb. 20, was spotted in a wheelchair in the Capitol later Wednesday.
Mitch McConnell, 82, suddenly froze in front of reporters twice in 2023. Pictured above is the second instance where he went silent on a dime. / ABC Affiliate WCPO via REUTERS
The falls are the latest scares for McConnell, who infamously froze twice while speaking with reporters in 2023—first in the Capitol and again in his native Kentucky. His office’s response to those incidents were similar to how they addressed his falls on Wednesday, insisting then that their boss was “fine.”
The only senators older than McConnell are Bernie Sanders, 83, and Chuck Grassley, who is 90. There are seven U.S. representatives older than McConnell, with the eldest of the bunch being Hal Rogers—an 87-year-old Republican who ran unopposed in Kentucky last year.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who will turn 85 next month, also suffered a fall in December that required her to undergo hip replacement surgery for a fractured hip.
She did not use a wheelchair in her return to the Capitol in January, but the California Democrat had notably ditched her signature stilettos—which rang out throughout the marble-floored Capitol building for decades—for some comfier shoes.
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