Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) suffered a sprained wrist but was not otherwise seriously injured after falling following a weekly lunch gathering with his colleagues,his office said Tuesday.
“Leader McConnell tripped following lunch. He sustained a minor cut to the face and sprained his wrist. He has been cleared to resume his schedule,” according to the statement.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said McConnell’s fall happened after he left the lunch and was going through a Senate reception room. He said McConnell had a cut to his face but was able to make it to his office without assistance.
At a weekly press conference not long after McConnell’s fall, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) gave an update on the Kentucky Republican, saying, “He is fine. He’s in his office.”
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McConnell, who will turn 83 in February, has had a history of health issues. He decided not to run again for party leader after suffering two public freezes at weekly press conferences in 2023. Thune will replace him as head of the Senate GOP.
McConnell also had a concussion and broken ribs after he fell at a fundraising dinner last year.
After the first freeze up, McConnell joked he had been “sandbagged,” a reference to President Joe Biden blaming an ill-placed sandbag on stage for a public fall after a speech in June 2023. In his second freezing episode, a spokesman said McConnell paused after feeling “momentarily lightheaded.”
While McConnell will no longer be the top-ranking Republican in the Senate in 2025, a post he held since 2007, he will still be influential as the chair of the subcommittee that deals with annual defense spending.