Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) shared his skepticism about his fellow Kentucky Senator on Wednesday, saying he’s not sure about the medical diagnosis Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell received after his second freeze-up this summer.
The medical check-up was conducted by the Capitol attending physician, Dr. Brian Monahan, who said on Tuesday that he examined McConnell and found “no evidence” McConnell has a seizure disorder or “experienced a stroke, TIA or movement disorder such as Parkinson’s disease.”
Questions about McConnell’s health started long before he appeared to freeze in front of reporters at the end of July and then again at the end of August.
The Republican leader suffered from a concussion earlier this year after taking a hard fall.
Still, Monahan maintains that McConnell is in healthy enough shape, saying that after consulting with the 81-year-old senator, he “conferred” with his neurology team that said he was “medically clear to continue with his schedule as planned.”
“Occasional lightheadedness is not uncommon in concussion recovery and can also be expected as a result of dehydration,” Monahan said.
Still, Paul is not so certain, telling reporters on Tuesday that it would be better for senators to be “forthcoming about what’s going on with their health problems.”
“Obviously not being in the position — not seeing the x-rays, not seeing the radiology — I can really only comment, I guess, on what they have released,” Paul, who practiced medicine as an eye doctor, said. “And they have the Senate doctor saying he has a normal EEG.”
Paul continued by saying that the tests discussed by Monahan may not be getting to the root cause of the problem McConnell is facing.
“The problem with saying someone has a normal EEG and saying they’re not having seizures, is that people who have short seizures, well over 80% of them have normal EEGs,” Paul said. “If you’re having longer seizures, you’re more likely, but even then only about half of them have abnormal EEGs. An EEG that’s done at one time on an office visit often will miss things. Even a 24-hour EEG might miss things.”
When asked by a reporter, Paul said he thinks the doctor did not provide “a valid medical diagnosis.”
“Everybody’s seen the clips,” he said. “It’s not a valid medical diagnosis for people to say that’s dehydration.”
When asked what he thought about McConnell’s ability to continue to serve as the Senate Minority Leader, Paul declined to answer, saying that it just “doesn’t look like dehydration.”
“And so this isn’t a criticism of him or anything — it’s a criticism of the way it’s being handled publicly, by giving a diagnosis that everybody thinks is a lot less than what it actually is,” Paul said. “So then people automatically think, ‘Wow, it’s a lot worse than it actually is.’ But it could be something very treatable. Seizures are treated. Many people in high-functioning jobs have seizures. Many seizures after trauma go away, but there’s a lot of things I don’t know.”