Former Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, November 19, 2024. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
When The Hill reported, earlier this week, that Senate Major Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) and Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) had been speaking to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) — who has been hospitalized for weeks — quite a few MAGA Republicans argued that they weren't being transparent. Democrats called for transparency as well, but MAGA Republicans had an especially conspiratorial tone about McConnell's illness. And CNN's John Berman examined that tone during a Friday morning conversation with Puck News' Leigh Ann Caldwell.
Berman told his guest, "As journalists, we obviously want transparency. We would like to know what is going on with our public figures, and I think voters deserve that transparency. What's a little bit nuanced about this story is how angry some people appear to be online over it, and some of that anger and conspiracy is coming from the right. And I'm curious why that is."
Caldwell told Berman, "Well, the right has broken up with Sen. Mitch McConnell years ago. He is no longer an ally of Donald Trump. And the right is also tying everything that happens in Washington to this SAVE Act, this voter ID, birthright citizen or citizenship bill that the president is obsessed with passing. But the reality is that McConnell's office's silence about this is really feeding into these conspiracies. McConnell's office has historically, very often, given little information about anything. And Sen. McConnell himself is very comfortable in the silence and very comfortable with people saying anything they want about him."
Caldwell continued, "He has built a career on taking all the bows and arrows for his members, and it is one thing that does not bother him. But in this day and age, when you have such an active online conspiracy movement, this is not serving anyone well. And especially now that the governor of Kentucky has now sent a letter asking for more information, and no one is receiving it. He is still representing millions of constituents in Kentucky who have no idea what the status of his health is, and if he will actually be coming back to the Senate, John."
Berman told Caldwell, "Alright. Thank you for laying it out like that. I think I understand it better now, because I was trying to figure out where the scandal, insofar as it was, is here."
