CNN fooled by fake GOP lawmaker claiming he spoke to McConnell for '45 minutes'

On Wednesday, while reporting on responses to the mystery surrounding Senator Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) health, CNN got duped, citing a post from a fake Republican lawmaker.

During a morning panel segment discussing McConnell’s hospitalization, Inside Politics ran a graphic displaying four online statements from figures who had claimed to have spoken with the senator, who has been missing from the public eye for weeks amidst rumors that he may be brain dead. Among them was a post by one Rep. Jack Kimble, which read, “I spoke to my old friend Mitch McConnell this morning, the senior Senator from Kentucky. He’s still recovering in the hospital. We talked for just shy of 45 minutes.”

The only problem: Kimble isn’t real. While his X profile asserts he is the “Republican Representing CA's 54th Dist. & co-sponsor of Poe's Law,” and that his novel “Detective Jesus #1: Thou Shalt Not Kill is out on Amazon,” the whole thing is satire. “Kimble’s” account posts regularly, parodying a MAGA perspective with wry humor that often skewers the movement’s hypocrisy and nonsense.

About Trump’s recent World Cup red card debacle, for example, Kimble posted, “Donald Trump had no choice but to get Balogun reinstated. He’s a birthright citizen and The Supreme Court just ruled we can’t take away their citizenship or give them red cards. Blame the liberal judges.” Or when taunting MAGA outrage toward Bruce Springsteen, he declared, “It always shocked me that Bruce Springsteen was too dumb to understand the meaning of his own song.”

His CNN-cited post regarding McConnell was in response to a meme that cropped up after a handful of conservative figures claimed to have spoken with the Senator for “20 minutes,” prompting a wave of tongue-in-cheek posts about chatting up the hospitalized lawmaker. Kimble’s post continued beyond what CNN referenced, claiming, “He's so sharp. Just like always he let me do all of the talking. He's a great listener. After that we prayed silently for awhile and had a staring contest. Just like always, he beat me. I told him we want to see him back at work as soon as possible.” CNN displayed the first part of his post alongside statements by CNN host Scott Jennings, a spokesperson of Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), and a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD).

The Kimble account caught the reference, responding, “CNN’s extreme leftwing bias exposed.”