Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., suffered a fractured shoulder from a fall outside his home in Louisville on Sunday, his office said in a statement.
“This morning, Leader McConnell tripped at home on his outside patio and suffered a fractured shoulder,” McConnell spokesman David Popp announced after the incident. “He has been treated, released and is working from home in Louisville.”
Popp said the lawmaker plans to continue to work from home for now, where he has been in touch with Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Rob Portman of Ohio, whose states were impacted by mass shootings over the weekend.
“This afternoon, he contacted Senators Cornyn and Portman to express his deepest sympathies for the people of El Paso and Dayton and discuss the senseless tragedies of this weekend,” Popp said on Sunday.
The first of the two shootings occurred Saturday afternoon when a gunman opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, leaving 20 people dead and 26 injured. Less than 13 hours later, another shooter attacked a crowd outside a bar in Dayton, Ohio, killing 9 people and injuring 27.
Cornyn traveled to El Paso on Sunday and pledged to work with the city’s government. “We stand with all El Pasoans in the face of this senseless violence,” he said.
Our hearts go out to the families of those killed and injured in El Paso today. We stand with all El Pasoans in the face of this senseless violence, and thank the brave @eppolice officers & first responders. I stand ready to help @ElPasoTXGov and @Mayor_Margo any way I can.
— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) August 3, 2019
Portman offered prayers for the victims, saying in a statement Sunday morning that he was “talking to local leaders and law enforcement officials.” “These senseless acts of violence must stop,” he added.
I am talking to local leaders and law enforcement officials this morning. First and foremost, let’s get all the facts and help the community heal. If you have information on shooting, please call 937-225-6217.
— Rob Portman (@robportmanOH) August 4, 2019
The statement from McConnell’s office did not mention where the lawmaker received help or the expected time needed for recovery. It came on the same day as several key Democrats called on the majority leader to reconvene the Senate in order to pass gun control legislation after the two shootings over the weekend left 29 dead and 53 injured within the span of 13 hours.
Among them was Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who urged McConnell to “call the Senate back for an emergency session.” The top Senate Democrat said his colleagues must “debate and vote” on a universal background check bill that passed the House of Representatives in February.
El Paso, Dayton, one awful event after another. @SenateMajLdr McConnell must call the Senate back for an emergency session to put the House-passed universal background checks legislation on the Senate floor for debate and a vote immediately.
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) August 4, 2019
McConnell tweeted Saturday that he was “horrified” by the “senseless violence.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., retweeted that message on Sunday as she called out the Kentucky Republican for merely offering “my prayers.” Ocasio-Cortez accused McConnell of “sitting on” the background check bill “since February giving bogus excuses.”
The House passed HR8, a Bipartisan Background Checks Act, *5 months ago* and the Senate has yet to vote on it.
It was one of our 1st major priorities after ending the gov shutdown.
You’ve been sitting on it since February giving bogus excuses.
Care to explain the people why? https://t.co/l5ZSDyPyWw
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 4, 2019
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who is vying to take on Trump in 2020, also urged McConnell to “bring the Senate back into session” for the vote. “That’s a first step to addressing our serious gun violence epidemic,” he said.
Mitch McConnell should bring the Senate back into session immediately to pass HR 8, the gun safety bill that has already passed the House. That's a first step to addressing our serious gun violence epidemic.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) August 4, 2019
Another presidential hopeful, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., also urged the majority leader to reconvene the Senate: “We must treat this like the public health crisis that it is,” while Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, told CNN: “I hope that Sen. McConnell would bring the Senate back tomorrow and pass the background check bill and send it to the president. The president must sign it. Period.”
We must treat this like the public health crisis that it is. @SenMajLdr: Bring the Senate back from recess to vote on legislation to address the gun violence epidemic.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) August 4, 2019
McConnell, who is running for a seventh term in the upper chamber next year and has aligned himself closely with Trump, returned to Kentucky on Friday after the Senate departed for a five-week recess Thursday, praising the chamber for a hard-won budget and debt deal that staved off a possible government shutdown.
He has recently come under scrutiny for blocking the consideration of an election security bill aimed at protecting the nation’s political system against foreign attacks.
The majority leader spent Saturday in Fancy Farm, a small town in southwest Kentucky that hosts an annual political rally in which speakers from both parties address a spirited crowd.
McConnell attended the Bluegrass State’s signature political event, where some Democrats wore “Moscow Mitch” T-shirts adorned with the communist-era hammer and sickle symbols and others taunted him during the stump-style speaking at the Fancy Farm picnic.
The senator fired back at his critics and likened the attacks to “modern-day McCarthyism” during a Republican breakfast on Saturday, where he received a long standing ovation.
“It’s appropriate to see a bunch of Democrats running around with communist flags on their shirts,” the senator told reporters at the breakfast. “That ought to tell you something about where they want to take the country with the ‘Green New Deal’ and Medicare for All. Their whole agenda would fundamentally change the country with something it’s never been.”
“They want to turn America into a socialist country,” he said Sunday at the parish picnic, as his GOP supporters cheered and Democrats booed. “Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell are never going to let that happen. That’s why I call myself the ‘Grim Reaper.’ I’m killing their socialist agenda.”
