Senate GOP Expects Return of McConnell Next Week

Senate Republicans are quietly setting the stage for Mitch McConnell's reappearance at the Capitol as early as next week. GOP leadership sources tell Punchbowl that they expect the Kentucky senator, absent since mid-June, to rejoin the chamber for its September work stretch, though his office is not confirming a date. McConnell, 84, was hospitalized after being found unconscious at his Washington home, but details about his condition trickled out slowly, prompting criticism about transparency and even calls for his resignation from Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.

WHAS notes that Beshear continued to hammer at McConnell as recently as Wednesday. "If he is not there on Monday, he owes an explanation to the American people, to the people of Kentucky," said Beshear. "You can't not show up for work and not call and talk to your boss—and his boss is the people of Kentucky." McConnell's office has said a fall led to his hospitalization and that he has been in rehab and then recovering at home with "intensive" physical therapy. His return would give Republicans a clearer path to advancing a stalled farm bill in the Senate Agriculture Committee.