Sen. McConnell being treated for a concussion after fall

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) suffered a concussion after taking a tumble at a Washington, DC, hotel Wednesday night, his office said Thursday.

The 81-year-old “is grateful to the medical professionals for their care and to his colleagues for their warm wishes,” McConnell spokesman David Popp added in a statement.

McConnell will remain hospitalized for a few days for treatment and observation, the statement said without detailing how long he might be away from the Senate. 

The GOP leader was attending a dinner for the Senate Leadership Fund, a Super PAC that raises money for Republican candidates, at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in the nation’s capital when he tripped and fell. 

President Biden, 80, said on Twitter that he and first lady Jill Biden wished McConnell a “speedy recovery.”

“We look forward to seeing him back on the Senate floor,” the posting said.

Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said Thursday that he hadn’t yet spoken to McConnell, but recalled attending the Waldorf dinner and McConnell giving a speech “as usual.”

“Evidently it happened later in the evening,” Thune told reporters, adding that he was at another reception at the time and did not see McConnell fall.

Another member of the Senate GOP leadership team, John Barasso of Wyoming, said McConnell was “awake and talking.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said he talked to McConnell and extended “my prayers and well wishes.”

“I joined every single one of my colleagues in wishing Leader McConnell a speedy and full recovery,” the Brooklyn Democrat said on the Senate floor.

McConnell, first elected to the Senate in 1984, fell outside of his Louisville home in 2019 and fractured his shoulder, an injury that required surgery. The Kentuckian has been the top Senate Republican since 2007, putting him on course to break the chamber record for longest-tenured party leader, currently held by Montana Democrat Mike Mansfield.

McConnell is also the latest senator to be forced from the chamber due to physical malady. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), 89, is recovering at home from a bout of shingles, and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), 53, is being treated for clinical depression at Walter Reed Medical Center. 

With Post wires