Fox News host Laura Ingraham explicitly called for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to step down following his latest freezing episode on Wednesday, claiming the 81-year-old lawmaker’s recent health problems “negates” conservatives’ efforts to make President Joe Biden’s “own decrepit state an issue.”
For the second time in five weeks, McConnell froze up and was unable to speak for an extended amount of time during a press conference. After delivering a speech Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, the Kentucky senator paused for nearly 30 seconds and became uncomfortably speechless after a reporter asked him a question, prompting his aides to jump in and intervene.
The episode was unnervingly similar to McConnell suddenly growing silent during a Senate presser while talking to the press, only for Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) and others to quickly whisk him away. In both instances, McConnell’s staff later claimed the senator merely “felt light-headed” for a moment and that he was “fine” and “sharp” afterward. These latest incidents, meanwhile, occurred months after McConnell suffered injuries during repeated falls, including a concussion.
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Ingraham, like most of her cohorts at Fox News, has spent the past few years portraying Biden as feeble, senile, and mentally incompetent (while also occasionally painting him as the mastermind of a mob-like operation). During her Fox News broadcast on Wednesday night, she brought up McConnell’s recent freeze-ups by saying “we have real problems here” before comparing the GOP leader to the president.
“Our government is about to begin what are monumental negotiations over the budget and appropriations,” Ingraham said. “Five men are supposed to play a dominant role in those talks. Biden is 80 years old, Schumer, 72, McConnell, 81. And McCarthy, Hakeem Jeffries are both in their 50s. Now this means at least two of those five involved in deciding how we spend trillions of our tax dollars, they’re no longer capable of working full-time, and both sadly show obvious symptoms of both serious physical and cognitive decline.”
Adding that neither McConnell nor Biden “should be in their current jobs,” she pointed out that Biden was worse because he’s both “corrupt and senile,” pointing to Republicans’ unproven allegations that Biden received millions of dollars in bribes from foreign oligarchs.
“And as for Sen. McConnell, he should be at home enjoying his twilight years. He did some really good stuff with Supreme Court nominations, and he should get credit for that,” she declared. “But every member of the Republican conference should have compassionately urged him to step aside five weeks ago, which is the last time when this happened. The fact that no one did this to our knowledge is stunning and frankly irresponsible.”
At the same time, though, Ingraham made it crystal clear why she found it necessary for McConnell to step down.
“Of course, as The Angle has noted previously, the Democrats, they are only going to dump Biden if they think he has become a political liability,” Ingraham stated. “They haven’t thought that yet. Remember, they actually prefer having a puppet like Biden as president because he is easily manipulated.”
She continued: “But, Republicans can’t ‘Feinstein’ McConnell. In other words, let him continue on like this. It’s cruel. And it also negates their ability to make Biden’s own decrepit state an issue in 2024.”
Moments later, Ingraham would turn to conservative activist Ned Ryun, who went on to say that “Mitch is very much expendable” while agreeing with Ingraham that McConnell is part of the “establishment.”
Meanwhile, within the MAGA wing of the GOP, calls for McConnell to resign have grown louder. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) lumped in McConnell with Biden, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) as “examples of people who are not fit for office and it’s time to be serious about it.”
