Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., returned to the Senate on Monday after an absence of more than three months. “Today I will be casting my first vote in the Senate since I suffered a bad fall in June. I am looking forward to returning to the Senate floor and seeing my colleagues,” McConnell wrote in a statement Monday. The senator added that his recovery had been “a long and frustrating process”, and said it had been complicated by the “lingering effects of childhood polio”. “I am not back to 100%, but I have assured Leader Thune that, while I continue physical therapy on the advice of my doctors, I will do my best to be present for difficult votes when our Conference needs me,” McConnell added. The senator has been missing from the Senate since mid-June, when he suffered a fall at his home and was left “briefly unconscious,” according to a July statement. “I have to admit, after two years, two decades after dodging their questions, I wasn’t sure how many of you would all be here today,” McConnell joked to reporters while sitting in a wheelchair on Monday. “So I’m glad to see it. It is time to get back to work to finish the work of this Congress. I’m here to work on the farm bill.” McConnell, appearing frail but jovial, did not take questions from reporters. McConnell was hospitalized after his fall in June and later released for rehabilitative care. At the time, his office posted a photo of the senator in a hospital chair next to his wife, Elaine Chao. His absence, along with a lack of media interview appearances, sparked rampant speculation and calls from the public and Kentucky’s Democratic governor to release evidence that he was fit to serve. serve in Congress or resign. McConnell, 84, addressed in July why it took him so long to reveal the reason for his absence, saying he couldn’t help but hesitate to “share the vulnerability that comes with aging.” years. The senator suffered a fall during a Senate Leadership Fund dinner in 2023, resulting in a hospitalization and a diagnosis of a concussion and a broken rib. Later that year, McConnell froze mid-sentence while addressing reporters at the Capitol on more than one occasion. McConnell was elected to the Senate in 1984. Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., is the Republican candidate for the senatorial seat in the ruby red state.
