A day after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., appeared to freeze up during a news conference, Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., had her own awkward moment on Capitol Hill. When asked to vote on a Senate Defense Appropriations Bill on Thursday, July 27, Feinstein began giving an unprompted speech.
“I would like to support a yes vote on this. It provides $823 billion. That’s an increase of $26 billion for the Department of Defense. And it funds priorities submitted,” Feinstein began to say before Sen. Pat Murray, D-Wash., told her to “just say ‘aye.”’
Thursday’s incident came just a couple months after Feinstein returned from a lengthy absence from Congress after she was hospitalized with a case of the shingles. During the absence, members of her own Democratic Party called on her to resign. The 90-year-old senator plans to retire at the end of her current term in 2024.
Feinstein’s incident also came as new details about McConnell’s physical health leading up to his freeze-up this week have been revealed. According to reports, he tripped and fell while getting off a plane earlier in July.
McConnell was not seriously hurt, and was seen later that day at the Capitol. According to a source McConnell has been using a wheelchair recently as a precaution when he navigates crowded airports.
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McConnell is 81 years old. As a polio survivor, he has long struggled to navigate stairs and other obstacles.
The senator spent six weeks away from Congress recovering from a concussion and a cracked rib suffered in a fall earlier in 2023. Another fall in 2019 fractured McConnell’s shoulder, an injury that required surgery to treat.
The recent incidents with both McConnell and Feinstein have served as the latest reminder that America’s most powerful political leaders are much older than most in the rest of the world.
At 80 years old, President Joe Biden is the oldest U.S. president to ever serve in the White House. The median age for world leaders is currently 62.
President Biden’s advanced age has led to concerns about his fitness to run for reelection in 2024.
But it’s not just Biden. The Senate is also the oldest its been in U.S. history. At 64 years old, the Senate has the seventh highest average age of any lawmaking body in the world.
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