Concerns about aging members of Congress and the president were raised again after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky froze while speaking to reporters last week. Iowa Senator Joni Ernst says elected officials are expected to be able to handle the duties they were elected to carry out.
“Most Americans are smart and they deserve elected leaders who are mentally fed so what we want to say is someone who mentally can do the job that they have been assigned or elected to,” Ernst says. Ernst says McConnell was checked out no evidence of seizure, Parkinson’s or stroke was found. “The senior physician here at the United States Senate has cleared him. He actually took August and went through a series of tests,” Ernst says. “To his credit he did. I don’t think that President Biden has done that. But you know, bottom line is it comes down to the electorate and the electorate in Kentucky.”
Ernst says she met with McConnell Tuesday evening. “And he actually was sharp, sharp, sharp, you know it is a little different than what we have seen on the television with that episode. So again, I wish him the best, but I know that mentally he is there. The physician has declared him and it’s just it’s going to come down to elections now,” Ernst says.
Ernst says the national media keeps focusing on McConnell, but not President Biden’s failures. It was the second time McConnell had frozen up while speaking in the past two months.
(By Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City)