MAGA Senator Spurs Conspiracy About Mitch McConnell’s Proof of Life

Even Republican lawmakers are beginning to doubt Senator Mitch McConnell’s recent health update.

Speaking with Real America’s Voice’s Eric Bolling on Monday, MAGA Senator Ron Johnson suggested that the image circulated by McConnell’s office was not actually taken that day.

“I’ve just heard from some other sources that was an older photo. So I really don’t know,” Johnson said. “I haven’t talked to Mitch—I certainly wish he and his family well, I hope he can recover. Listen, it’s sad to watch people age, no matter who that person is.”

The Kentucky senator went missing for nearly a month, with little explanation offered by his office, after he was found unconscious in his Washington residence and rushed to the hospital on June 14. The media blackout finally ended on Sunday, when McConnell’s office shared a photo of the lawmaker beside his wife, holding a copy of The Washington Post’s Sunday sports section in his lap.

In a statement released by McConnell’s office alongside the image, the lawmaker explained several things that had not happened to him—including that he didn’t break any bones or suffer a concussion, and he hadn’t had a heart attack or stroke—rather than what had. The 84-year-old Republican did not offer any clarification on his current health condition, other than to say he had dealt with a “mild case of pneumonia” during his time in the hospital.

He also did not offer a projection for when he might return to work, noting that he has since been moved to a rehabilitation facility and is still “working closely” with legislative staff.

Far-right influencers immediately jumped on McConnell’s statement, baselessly suggesting that the picture had been AI-generated while demanding that McConnell release a video statement to address public concern.

Johnson, however, changed his tune within hours of the broadcast.

“It was a rumor. Just discount it,” Johnson told reporters. “I have no idea. I just, I heard that. I just heard it. So just assume it’s false.”

In a post on X, Johnson urged people to “beware of clickbait” and “watch the full clip.”

“Most importantly, I hope @SenMcConnell makes a full recovery and returns to the Senate,” he added.

An aide to Lindsey Graham called emergency services shortly before he died Saturday, after the South Carolina senator told her he was experiencing chest pains, according to a fellow GOP lawmaker.

Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama provided new information about Graham’s unexpected death to reporters Monday evening.

A woman who worked as Graham’s scheduler, and who had previously been Tuberville’s scheduler, received a phone call from the South Carolina Republican Saturday night. While Tuberville did not identify the scheduler, a staffer named Taylor Stephens was the scheduling director for the late senator, and previously held the same role in Tuberville’s office.

Graham called her, Tuberville recounted, and “basically he said, ‘Listen, I’m having chest pains. I need to do something.’ The scheduler asked if Graham had called 911. He goes, ‘No, that’s the reason I called you.’”

The woman, who had been at a restaurant with a current staffer of Tuberville’s, then contacted emergency services before going to Graham’s residence, where emergency personnel had “knocked the door down, and they were working on him.”

The information elucidates the events of the senator’s death by “aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease,” per his office. Previously, outlets including Fox News reported that the 911 call was made after 8 p.m. Saturday for cardiac arrest. About 25 minutes after the first dispatch, emergency personnel were reportedly conducting CPR.

The most recent draining of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has made President Trump’s claims of “vandalism” all the more doubtful.

The president made this claim after the “American Flag Blue” paint began to peel off in massive chunks and discolor the water, attributing the failed renovation to a “350-foot gash, made by a very sharp knife or razors.” Yet Monday’s draining revealed no such thing, only what appeared to be tire marks—likely from the president’s motorcade driving through the empty pool in May.

Even still, the president continues to double down on these spurious claims.

“ABC Fake News and its shaky anchor, David Muir, said that the Reflecting Pool was drained to address Peeling Paint (there is no paint, it was slashed with a knife, or box cutter, high grade colored waterproofing liner—it was VANDALISM!) and Algae Blooms (also caused by Vandals, but removed long ago!),” he wrote late Monday night on Truth Social. “In other words, the story was FAKE NEWS, but heavily slanted away from the real cause of the problem, Vandalism. It will be fixed soon, and better than ever. 60 monuments and fountains have been cleaned and fully renovated in D.C., and crime is at record lows! Washington has never looked better, or been safer!”

Six people have been arrested for alleged vandalism, even though one of them— former Olympic canoe racer David Hearn—contends that he was only grabbing one of the massive chunks of the pool’s lining that had floated up to the surface.

No one is buying this. In June, the president said that this so-called “gash” was just 250 feet long. Then it changed to 300 feet, 350 feet, and finally, 300 yards long, the size of three football fields. And yet all that has been revealed in this recent draining is what resembles tire marks, most likely left by the president himself, not vandals with box cutters. And to make matters worse, this failed vanity project has cost American taxpayers over $14 million.

The man Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shot and killed in Biddeford, Maine, on Monday was not their intended target, Maine Senator Angus King said.

King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told him that ICE had a warrant for a different person. This is similar to the case of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, who was also shot and killed by ICE last week.

“This development makes this tragedy even more disturbing and infuriating, and it underscores the reckless and haphazard manner in which immigration enforcement operations are being conducted in Maine and across the country. This has to end,” Maine Governor Janet Mills said on X Monday evening.

Just like in that case, ICE is claiming that the man, a 26-year-old from Colombia identified as Joan Sebastian Guerrero by King’s office, tried to “weaponize” his vehicle by running into or ramming agents. Eyewitnesses dispute that account, and say that agents instead shot at the man’s car. Video shows the Kia sedan riddled with bullet holes, and it was still running afterward. When agents finally stopped the car, the man’s body slumped to the ground as soon as they opened the driver’s side door.

An eyewitness told the Portland Press Herald that the man was “bleeding profusely from the head” when they pulled him out of the car.

“He was talking. He said, ‘I tried to stop,’” the eyewitness said. Agents surrounded the man on the ground in an intersection. Another witness told the newspaper that a young child, reportedly the victim’s daughter and no older than three years old, was at the scene crying in her Bluey pajamas.

In a statement posted to X Monday evening, the Department of Homeland Security said that “the vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon.

“The driver of the vehicle was struck, and emergency services were immediately contacted. He passed away from his injuries,” the statement read. It made no mention of whether the driver was ICE’s intended target.

The Trump administration’s Justice Department has filed 31 federal lawsuits seeking to force 30 states and Washington, D.C., to hand over their unredacted voter rolls. As of Monday afternoon, its record is 0-13.

On Monday, Judge Thomas E. Johnston of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia dismissed the federal government’s attempt to acquire sensitive voter information from the state.

The judge, an appointee of George W. Bush, ruled that the Trump administration’s demand was legally deficient. It failed to provide a “factual basis” and “statement of purpose,” as are required by the statute invoked by the administration, Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960. For that reason, he wrote, the government had “failed to state a claim.”

The growing string of defeats suggests the administration is simply throwing lawsuits against the wall to see what sticks. None have so far.

In the 13 rulings against the administration thus far, judges appointed by various presidents, including Donald Trump himself, shot down his administration’s attempts to acquire voter data—which anti-authoritarian advocacy group Protect Democracy has described as “an unprecedented and unconstitutional incursion” that seeks to set the stage for “purges of eligible voters, election subversion in 2026, and the invasion of fundamental privacy rights.”

A scathing footnote in Johnston’s ruling lays bare the groundlessness of the Trump administration’s crusade: “Given the lack of an adequate basis or purpose, one is left to wonder what the real purpose was for the Justice Department to go to the trouble of filing civil actions like this one all around the nation,” the judge wrote. “Troubling though this question is, it is not before the Court at this time.”