Sen. McConnell released from hospital after ‘flu-like’ symptoms scare
After more than a week in the hospital, Sen. Mitch McConnell has been discharged and is working from home for the week, according to a Wednesday statement from a McConnell spokesperson.
The spokesperson wrote that McConnell was released from the hospital Tuesday, eight days after he was initially admitted with “flu-like symptoms.”
“Senator McConnell was discharged from the hospital yesterday and is grateful for the outstanding care he received. He is feeling better and will be working from home this week on the advice of his doctors,” the spokesperson wrote.
McConnell’s hospitalization was the latest in a string of public health scares dating back to at least March 2023, when McConnell tripped at a dinner event in Washington, D.C., and was admitted and then discharged from the hospital several days later.
In 2023, he twice froze for prolonged periods in front of cameras.
A polio survivor, McConnell, 83, also fell in public once in 2024 and twice last year.
At the time of his hospitalization, a spokesperson said McConnell checked himself into the hospital after experiencing “flu-like symptoms.”
The spokesperson did not immediately respond to a question on the exact nature of McConnell’s health issue.
Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, one of the two most powerful members of the state legislature, recently praised McConnell’s tenure in office in comments to the press Wednesday.
He said that while McConnell’s approval rating in the state may be low, his impact will be appreciated in the years after he leaves office. McConnell, who made history as the longest-serving Senate party leader in history, is not seeking reelection this year; several candidates on both sides of the aisle have stepped up to replace him.
“This state — unless you really watch and understand the politics of it and the economics — they will not understand for a few years the influence that Mitch McConnell has had on this state, whether you like him or not,” Stivers said.
Stivers lauded McConnell’s work to get federal funding for the Brent Spence Bridge project, connecting Northern Kentucky to Cincinatti, Ohio. He said the state transportation budget would have been “consumed for the next eight years” on paying for it if McConnell didn’t come to the table to help pass a massive infrastructure bill under former Democratic president Joe Biden.
He also compared the difficulties of his own job as Kentucky’s longest-serving Senate president to McConnell’s, with the caveat that his is even less than “one-fiftieth” of what MCconnell’s had to deal with.
“Everybody wants to parse every word that you say, and so you’ve got to be very disciplined. He’s one of the most disciplined people I’ve seen. Does that hurt his image, his personal image? Yeah, I have no doubt. But when you think what he’s done for this state and how long he’s been there... you’ve got to respect that run.”
This story will be updated.
This story was originally published February 11, 2026 at 11:46 AM.
