[Reuter] Republican Senator Mitch McConnell returned to the U.S. Capitol on Monday after a three-month absence spent recuperating from a fall in his Washington home that had raised questions about his fitness to serve in Congress.
Looking frail and speaking in a voice that sometimes faltered, McConnell said he was determined to work to pass new farm legislation, aid U.S. relations with NATO and counter Russian aggression in Ukraine. He ignored a reporter who asked if he intended to serve out the remainder of his Senate term, which ends in January. He then entered the chamber to vote for a Republican judicial nominee.
A longtime Republican Party leader who in 2025 announced his plan to retire from the Senate after the 2026 midterms, McConnell had been out of public view since mid-June, when he was taken from his home to a hospital in the Washington area for reasons that went undisclosed for weeks.
McConnell later said he suffered a fall that left him briefly unconscious. While hospitalized, he developed pneumonia and was treated with antibiotics, according to a separate statement that McConnell's office attributed to the attending physician. He was released from a rehabilitation center in early August.
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