- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had two recent health scares while at press conferences.
- The Capitol physician said McConnell may have just been dehydrated and didn't have a stroke.
Republican Sen. Rand Paul spoke out against the Capitol physician's latest report regarding Senate Minority Mitch McConnell's health.
On Tuesday morning, Capitol physician Brian P. Monahan said that after consulting with several neurologists and reviewing the results of McConnell's MRI, he ruled out the possibility that McConnell experienced a stroke, has Parkinson's disease, or a seizure disorder after the senator's recent incidents during press conferences.
Prior to Tuesday's report, Monahan said he believed McConnell's repeated freeze-ups were either related to a concussion he sustained earlier in the year or a bout of dehydration.
But on Tuesday afternoon, Paul, a licensed ophthalmologist, who graduated from Duke Medical School in 1988, told reporters he disagreed with the Capitol physician's findings.
"To have the Senate doctor describe it as dehydration," Paul said, "I think even non-physicians seeing that probably aren't really accepting that explanation."
He continued: "Everybody's seen the clips, it's not a valid medical diagnosis for people to say that's dehydration."
In July, McConnell suddenly froze up in the middle of a press conference at the Capitol, ultimately leading to him getting whisked away by his fellow Republican colleagues. Just over a month later, in Kentucky, McConnell experienced a similar event where he seemed unable to understand or respond to someone's question for an extended period of time.
Speaking at the Capitol on Tuesday, McConnell reassured senators returning from the August recess that he was okay and that "August was a busy and productive month for me and my staff back in the commonwealth."
And while Paul, the junior senator from Kentucky, may be incredulous over McConnell's diagnosis, several of his congressional colleagues have publicly spoken out in support of the 81-year-old leader.
Sen. Rick Scott, who unsuccessfully tried to take McConnell's place as the top Republican in the Senate earlier in the year, said he believed following the health scares that McConnell was "gonna come back" and "work hard."
While McConnell may publicly have the support of his fellow Republicans, Politico previously reported that some were privately looking into forcing a special meeting to discuss the future of the GOP's congressional leadership once they returned from the August recess.
Representatives from McConnell and Paul's offices did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.