On Friday, a widely cited psychologist and body language expert revealed signs that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is afflicted with some form of “neurocognitive” condition. According to Dr. John Garrison, footage of McConnell’s first vote after returning to the Senate from his three-month medical absence makes it apparent that he has “absolutely no idea what is going on.”
Garrison begins by examining a video of McConnell’s arrival to vote. “He is unmoving,” notes Garrison. “Just has a thumbs up and they are moving him along fast. This is a lot of what we're seeing from Mitch McConnell: frozen positions, his facial expression unchanging, no responsiveness to the environment around him. I think comprehension-wise, he is not comprehending what is being spoken to him. He does not understand what he is doing.”
According to Garrison, the senator’s issues become even more apparent when he attempts to vote. In the video, as someone grasps his arm to let him know he’s being spoken to, McConnell appears to attempt a handshake, because, asserts Garrison, “He's been trained to shake hands with everybody. That's one of the things he probably is supposed to be able to do well at this point. But he really has no concept of what's happening right here. You'll notice immediately when his name is called, McConnell looks to the right to see what he's supposed to do.” What’s more, says Garrison, “Everybody around him seems to know he has no idea what's going on. They know they're going to have to guide him to get anything meaningful out of him.”
Now McConnell struggles to vote and can only do so when prompted by several people around him. Based on this, says Garrison, “What is abundantly clear at this point is that Mitch McConnell has absolutely no idea what is going on. I suspect he doesn't understand that he's actually voting on anything, much less what he is actually voting on. The ability to comprehend what's going on around him appears to be so limited that he needs reassurance even to know whether or not he should lift his finger.”
Next during footage of McConnell being loaded into a vehicle, Garrison notes that it looks almost identical to a recording from two days earlier, saying, “This is a separate video entirely, but we're getting exactly the same reaction, which is absolutely nothing. What we're seeing is a profound lack of spontaneous facial expressions. He tends to keep this odd smile on his face almost in a mask-like way. We see issues like this in advanced Parkinson's disease. Sometimes you also see these kinds of behaviors in something like Lewy body dementia. But what's very clear is there are serious neurocognitive impairments going on and he does not seem to have any ability to appropriately react to the situation around him.”
To sum things up, Garrison asserts that McConnell “is incapable of understanding the world around him. He did not know how to vote. He did not know what he was supposed to do. He needed reassurance even to say the word ‘aye.’ He has to look to other people to do literally anything in this meeting. But the shocking part is that even individuals with advanced neurological illness or advanced neurological disease tend to show more functioning than what we are seeing from Mitch McConnell at this point. I presume that until his term is up, we're just going to see more of this. Nobody seems to insist that he gets some kind of cognitive assessment. So, I suspect they'll just bring him in, tell him what to say, and then take him out again anytime they need a vote… It's remarkable that they are doing this.” Garrison concludes with a warning: “I cannot overstate how concerning it is that someone who is incapable of comprehending even the simplest of interactions is voting on legislation.”