The Hill briefly published an article Monday titled “DO NOT USE: A lookback at Mitch McConnell’s time in the Senate,” a placeholder tag typically used to keep prewritten obituary or retrospective content out of public view until it’s needed.
A copy of the piece remained live on Yahoo News after The Hill removed it from its own site. The error came days after NPR made a similar mistake, publishing a pre-written article that falsely announced the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
McConnell has now been hospitalized for more than three weeks, the Washington Post reported on Monday, and his office has not disclosed the cause of the hospitalization, his current condition, or when he might return. He last voted on June 11.
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Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in mid-June he had spoken with McConnell by phone and that he “sounded good,” a statement now three weeks old.
Read: McConnell Remains Hospitalized Nearly Three Weeks After Cardiac Arrest Call at His Home
Police scanner audio obtained by an independent journalist indicates paramedics performed CPR on someone experiencing cardiac arrest at an address matching McConnell’s DC home on the morning he was hospitalized, a detail McConnell’s office has not addressed directly.
McConnell has had several other health incidents in recent years, including a 2023 fall that caused a concussion, two public freezing episodes that same year, and additional falls in 2024 and 2025.
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Read: Fact Check: Mitch McConnell’s Health and How He’ll Likely Be Replaced
McConnell has already announced he will not seek reelection, and Republican Rep. Andy Barr is heavily favored to win his seat in November. Kentucky changed its Senate succession law in 2024 so that a vacancy is now filled by special election rather than gubernatorial appointment, since the state’s governor is a Democrat.
Speculation escalated further on Monday when conservative activist Laura Loomer wrote on X that a “high level source close to the White House” told her McConnell is “officially brain dead” and “not coming back.”
Desiree Townsend, the journalist who first surfaced the EMS audio from June 14, wrote separately that she had “heard the same thing from my sources for days.”
Both claims rely entirely on anonymous sourcing, and McConnell’s office has neither confirmed nor denied them. Brain death is a specific, legally defined medical determination, not a term that should be used loosely, and no named medical source, hospital, or family member has corroborated it.
Separately, McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, was photographed in Beijing meeting with a senior Chinese official on June 17, three days after her husband’s hospitalization, a detail that has fueled further speculation online without adding any actual clarity to his condition.
Porter McConnell, his eldest daughter from his first marriage, appeared to deactivate her X account amid the speculation, TMZ reported.
