Sen. Mitch McConnell sits with his wife, former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, in a photograph released by his office in Washington, D.C., July 26, 2026. Office of Senator Mitch McConnell/Handout via REUTERS
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) on Wednesday said he’s still doesn’t “know anything” about Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) condition after the 84-year-old senator suffered a fall on June 14 that led to his hospitalization.
Speaking with independent journalist Nicholas Ballasy, Tuberville said McConnell “lives next door to me, but he’s still in the hospital, doing rehab.”
Asked by Ballasy if that’s “all you know,” Tuberville replied: “I don’t know anything.”
Tuberville has previously called for more information from the senator.
Tuberville, speaking with Fox News on July 16, said McConnell “needs to come out and put a little video out” after senators “didn’t get any information" at the senator's luncheon that morning.
“I don’t know why, what’s going on, but that’s not my business; that’s the leadership’s business, and we wish him well,” Tuberville said at the time.
McConnell’s team has released two “proof-of-life” photos that have raised more questions than answers about the senator’s condition. The first, on July 12, featured McConnell and wife Elaine Chao seated in a hospital bed with a copy of that morning’s The Washington Post. The second was released on July 27 with McConnell seated in a chair next to Chao.
That second release prompted a journalist and family friend of Chao’s to call out one “ implausible” detail in the photo.
"I've known members of the Chao family — specifically, Elaine’s apolitical sisters (Grace and the late Angela) — since our college years,” podcaster Jeff Yang wrote. "I can’t imagine Elaine, one of the most put-together people in existence, releasing a pic wearing a thin shirt over a visible black bra, untucked. Just implausible.”
A forensic psychologist also said the July 27 photo was littered with “red flags,” including the composition which kept McConnell's hands out frame just out frame. As AlterNet reported at the time, the framing could "hide any possible 'edemas' that they might show, or anything else concerning about them."
"[McConnell and Chao] don't want you to ask any other questions; they don't want to give any other information," Garrison said of the photo.
“This is the best that they could do," he explained. "It doesn't seem that they're able to get him to be with it enough to take a decent photo."
Tuberville, in that July 16 Fox News interview, said McConnell's absence could throw a wrench in Senate votes.
"He's gonna need to come back probably before this three-week session’s over with, because then we're off for like five weeks," Tuberville said.
The three-week session ends Friday.
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