Medicaid is federally funded and state-run, but the program’s beneficiaries often have the least say in who provides their care and what that care costs.

That’s a built-in flaw. States have every incentive to maximize federal matching funds while federal taxpayers bear much of the cost. The result pits state bureaucrats against Washington’s need to control Medicaid spending — and against taxpayers’ interest in stopping providers, insurers, and contractors from cashing in on weak oversight.

New York’s home-care scandal is not merely a contracting failure. It is a warning about Medicaid’s overall design.

That is why cosmetic Medicaid reforms so often produce more spending, more inefficiency, and more fraud.

Just look at New York.

Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul’s administration botched the reform of its roughly $11 billion Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, a Medicaid-financed home-care benefit, so badly that federal prosecutors came knocking.

The U.S. Justice Department recently sued the New York State Department of Health and Public Partnerships LLC, the program’s sole fiscal intermediary since 2025. Prosecutors allege that New York’s CDPAP reform, supposedly designed to reduce waste in a billion-dollar program, instead created conditions for an ongoing Medicaid fraud scheme.

Personal care — nonmedical long-term care provided in the homes of elderly and disabled patients — is especially vulnerable to waste and abuse. The reason? It’s difficult to verify that caregivers worked the hours billed or provided the services claimed.

“The service is delivered by unlicensed caregivers in private residences, usually with no on-site supervision,” Bill Hammond of the Empire Center has explained. “The risk is heightened when the aide is a friend or family member of the patient, which is allowed under the popular and rapidly growing [CDPAP].”

New York’s numbers show the scale of the problem.

In 2021, the state employed 138 home-health and personal care aides per 1,000 residents age 65 or older — more than double the national average. New York City employed 236 aides per 1,000 older residents. By 2024, the statewide rate had climbed to 171 aides per 1,000 older residents.

Home care was supposed to reduce New Yorkers’ reliance on nursing homes. Yet the share of elderly New Yorkers living in nursing homes declined more slowly than in almost every other state, while New York’s per capita Medicaid spending on nursing homes remained the highest in the nation and more than double the U.S. average.

RELATED: Medicare red tape turned insurers into villains

NoDerog/Getty Images

Over the decade leading up to 2025, hundreds of fiscal intermediaries emerged to process payroll for CDPAP lay caregivers and perform other administrative duties. These intermediaries eagerly tapped loosely supervised Medicaid dollars.

Many aggressively advertised the opportunity to become a CDPAP caregiver and get paid by Medicaid to care for a family member — eventually at the same legally mandated minimum pay as professionally trained home-care aides.

That helped fuel what Hammond described as “seemingly bottomless and unchecked demand for a costly Medicaid benefit, which has been rising almost 10 times faster than the growth of the state’s elderly population.”

In 2024, New York passed legislation consolidating CDPAP management under a single statewide contractor. The state awarded that role to PPL.

By then, CDPAP relied on nearly 600 intermediary firms, and enrollment had exploded from roughly 12,000 to more than 250,000 between 2015 and 2023.

By shrinking the bureaucracy, New York lawmakers claimed they would restrain CDPAP’s soaring costs. Once again, they promised greater accountability and hundreds of millions of dollars in savings.

They did not deliver.

According to the Justice Department, the procurement process for “one of the most lucrative contracts for administering a Medicaid program in the nation” was compromised from the beginning. Prosecutors allege that “PPL was preselected as the winner through a sham bid process.”

The transition from hundreds of intermediaries to PPL was also disorderly. An unrealistic timeline, evident to both PPL and the Department of Health, disrupted patient care.

Most important, prosecutors allege that “PPL and New York, without explanation, have disregarded key limits the contract imposed on the revenues and profits PPL was entitled to.” Those limits were “central to the goal of saving hundreds of millions of dollars through the CDPAP transition.”

PPL allegedly “siphoned millions of dollars of Medicaid funding,” with the state Department of Health complicit in the ongoing scheme.

RELATED: SNAP may be paying for manicures, bongs, and an obesity epidemic — on your dime

Pete Kiehart/Bloomberg/Getty Images

PPL can be replaced. But another company eager to rent-seek will inevitably take its place unless the incentive structure changes.

As long as federal taxpayers contribute anywhere from $1 to $9 for every $1 New York contributes to fund Medicaid for New Yorkers, state administrations and health officials will remain too complacent about the misuse of taxpayer money.

Any money recovered from this alleged scheme would be dwarfed by Medicaid’s broader improper spending crisis, which may have exceeded $1 trillion over the past decade.

New York’s home-care scandal is not merely a contracting failure. It is a warning about Medicaid’s overall design.

The program rewards states for spending more, obscures responsibility for waste, and leaves taxpayers chasing fraud after the money is gone. Overhauling Medicaid to restore accountability is long overdue.

​Bureaucracy, Fraud, Health officials, Justice department, Medicaid, New york, Nursing homes, Oversight, Obesity epidemic, Kathy hochul, Opinion & analysis 

A former beauty pageant winner, worship pastor, and Christian performer pleaded guilty to committing day care fraud at three businesses in Minnesota.

Jill Mertens, 43, admitted to fraudulently receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Great Start Compensation Support Payment Program, which was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota.

‘We had no idea she was committing any fraud. We didn’t have any idea the day care was in any financial hardship.’

In 2016, Mertens registered three day cares she owned: The Tree of Life Academy in Ramsey and the Creative Stars Academy in Kasson and Rochester.

State data showed that the centers received numerous complaints and violations in recent years.

She received about $425,000 from the program to pay for 23 teachers who did not work at the day cares. She also inflated hours for the employees that she did have.

Mertens won Miss North Dakota and competed in the Miss America pageant in 2001. She went on to become a worship pastor and recorded a contemporary/Christian/gospel album that was released in 2011.

KARE-TV spoke to one couple that said they had prepaid for day care services at one of Mertens’ centers and were cheated when she declared bankruptcy and sold off the centers.

“We had no idea she was committing any fraud. We didn’t have any idea the day care was in any financial hardship,” Joe McInerney of Mantorville said. “Hopefully, she has some time to think about what she did and pay back her debts.”

Mertens agreed to pay back the funds she stole in her plea deal and was released on supervised release.

RELATED: Woman pleads guilty to day care fraud — and also ran Feeding Our Future scam and autism center

A KARE reporter noted in the news video that the plea deal included immunity for Mertens from any other federal investigation that may or may not be going on.

Mertens faces about two years in prison, according to the sentencing guidelines.

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​Daycare fraud, Feeding our future, Minnesota, Miss america, Plea deal, Politics 

“Inclusive.” “Representative.” “Transparent.” That is how Maine Democratic Party Chairman Charlie Dingman describes the process for selecting a new Democratic nominee after Graham Platner’s withdrawal last week from the U.S. Senate race.

Those are worthy goals. But can a process truly be fair, representative, and transparent when the voters who participated in the June primary will not directly choose the replacement nominee?

Maine voters deserve to know that their vote counts not only on Election Day, but throughout the electoral process.

Under Maine law, Democrats have until July 27 to select a replacement. Rather than hold another statewide primary, party officials will convene a nominating convention to choose the candidate who appears on the November ballot.

That means 601 delegates from Maine’s 16 counties — not the full primary electorate that selected Platner — will choose the replacement nominee.

Primary elections and nominating conventions serve different purposes. A primary gives every eligible voter an equal voice in choosing a nominee. A convention limits that decision to party delegates acting on behalf of the organization.

Both are recognized under Maine law. But they are fundamentally different processes, and the distinction is vital.

The question is not whether Maine Democrats are acting within the law. The question is whether replacing the primary electorate with a convention best preserves public confidence.

Transparency is important. But transparency alone does not answer the deeper question: Should voters or party delegates choose a replacement nominee after a primary?

The circumstances in Maine are unusual, but the broader issue is not.

Political parties across the country have rules for replacing nominees when unexpected vacancies occur. A replacement is necessary. Parties must follow the law. But they should also ask whether their procedures reflect the will of voters as closely as circumstances allow.

RELATED: The media’s Democratic cover-up is collapsing

Chuwy/Getty Images

Following the law is essential. Preserving confidence in the process is essential too.

This is not the first time Democratic voters have watched party leaders make consequential decisions after ballots had already been cast. In 2024, Democratic delegates, rather than primary voters, selected Vice President Kamala Harris after President Joe Biden stepped aside.

Regardless of where one stood on that decision, it raised an enduring question now facing Maine: When circumstances change after a primary, who should choose the replacement nominee?

Election integrity is often discussed in terms of voter ID, ballot security, voter rolls, and timely vote counting. Those safeguards matter because they help ensure elections are conducted securely and accurately.

But election integrity also depends on voters believing their participation shapes the outcome.

When the final decision shifts from the primary electorate to party delegates after voters have already cast ballots, voters are left wondering how much their vote truly counts.

That uncertainty fuels something increasingly common in American politics: cynicism.

A growing number of Americans have adopted a “black-pill” view of politics — the belief that participation is pointless because vital decisions are ultimately made by a small group rather than the broader electorate.

They’re wrong. Voting remains viable.

Yet every time a party shifts a consequential decision from the full primary electorate to a smaller group of delegates after ballots have already been cast, it becomes harder to convince people their participation makes a difference.

RELATED: This is not the ‘red wave’ America needs

Aimee Dilger/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

Maine voters deserve to know that their vote counts not only on Election Day, but throughout the electoral process.

Election integrity is about more than secure ballots and accurate voter rolls. It is about preserving public confidence that voters, not party insiders, ultimately decide who represents them.

Maine’s experience should prompt lawmakers and political parties to examine whether existing nominee replacement procedures preserve voter confidence when nominees withdraw after a primary.

The question in Maine is not simply who the next Democratic nominee will be.

It is whether voters remain at the center of the process after their ballots have been cast.

The strength of an election is measured not only by how votes are counted, but by whether the voters who cast them still have the final word.

​Primary, Democrats, Graham platner, Americans, Democracy, Kamala harris, Elections, Opinion & analysis, Maine 

For years, Americans have treated the Supreme Court like the nation’s principal.

Every cultural dispute eventually finds its way to Washington, where nine unelected justices are expected to settle questions that neighbors, legislators, parents, and communities no longer seem willing — or able — to resolve themselves.

A free people cannot forever outsource self-government to nine justices in Washington. Sooner or later, our democracy requires citizens to do the hard work themselves.

The Supreme Court’s recent 6-3 decision upholding state laws protecting women’s sports changed more than athletic policy. It reminded America how the Constitution was designed to work.

Much of the public conversation has focused on biological sex and transgender participation in women’s athletics. Those are important questions. But beneath the headlines lies something more significant: The court exercised judicial restraint. Instead of imposing one national standard, it returned much of the debate to the states.

That may prove to be the ruling’s greatest contribution.

Federalism is one of the Constitution’s forgotten masterpieces. The founders never intended America to function as one enormous county governed from Washington. They understood that a nation as large and diverse as ours could remain united because many decisions would be made closer to the people.

California may choose one approach. Texas another. Massachusetts another still.

Citizens remain free to debate, persuade, vote, and, if they wish, relocate to states whose laws better reflect their convictions. That’s the wisdom of our federal constitutional system.

Uniformity has never been America’s highest political virtue. Liberty has.

Federalism has costs. Different states will establish different athletic policies. National competitions may become more complicated. Families moving across state lines may encounter different eligibility rules. Critics are right that legal diversity can create confusion.

But confusion is not democracy’s greatest threat. Centralized power is.

RELATED: Women’s sports finally got a reality check

Oliver Contreras/AFP/Getty Images

Freedom is rarely lost in one dramatic moment. It is surrendered gradually as authority migrates from local communities to distant institutions. The Constitution deliberately resists that impulse because power is safest when it remains close to the people who must live under it.

That principle deserves defending regardless of where one stands on this particular question.

The dissent by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson rested on constitutional and statutory interpretation. Lawyers will debate those arguments for years.

Still, their votes raise an unavoidable question.

Three accomplished women reached a legal conclusion on an issue directly affecting women and girls that many female athletes believe weakens the very protections women’s sports were created to provide.

The issue carries added significance because Justice Jackson’s 2022 confirmation hearing became a defining cultural moment when she declined to define the word “woman,” explaining that she was “not a biologist.” Whether one agreed with her answer or not, the exchange symbolized a culture increasingly uncertain about concepts previous generations regarded as self-evident.

A civilization begins to lose confidence long before it loses arguments.

Women’s sports were never created to diminish men. They were created to protect women.

Biological differences in strength, speed, endurance, bone density, and muscle mass are measurable realities. Separate women’s competitions were established not because women are inferior but because fairness requires meaningful opportunities for women to compete, succeed, and excel.

That principle has served female athletes well for decades.

It also raises an obvious question: Must fairness for transgender athletes require sacrificing fairness for women?

Perhaps America has accepted a false choice.

Athletics already recognizes that fairness sometimes requires separate categories. We separate competitors by age because maturity matters. We separate them by weight because size matters. We celebrate the Paralympics because physical ability matters.

We separate men’s and women’s sports because biology matters.

RELATED: The Supreme Court finally confirmed what I knew all along

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

None of those distinctions is considered discrimination. They are considered fairness.

Rather than forcing one protected group into another’s category, America should consider developing meaningful transgender athletic divisions: state championships, collegiate scholarships, national tournaments, and professional opportunities designed specifically for transgender competitors.

That would expand opportunity without diminishing opportunity.

Surely innovation is better than endless litigation.

The court’s decision did not end America’s debate. The conversation now belongs where representative government intended it to be: in state legislatures, school boards, athletic associations, coaches’ offices, and living rooms across America.

As a Christian, I believe Scripture teaches that humanity is created male and female. I also recognize that many Americans do not share that conviction.

That’s precisely why federalism is vital. It allows citizens with profoundly different worldviews to govern themselves through democratic institutions while remaining united under one Constitution.

That arrangement requires something increasingly rare.

Not outrage. Not hashtags. Not judicial shortcuts. Persuasion.

Justice Clarence Thomas, writing separately, argued that biological sex is binary and immutable and warned that denying this reality tells “a lie to the public.” I agree with him.

But whether one agrees with every word or not, his opinion reflects a broader concern: Law cannot remain untethered from objective reality forever. Reality has a stubborn habit of refusing to yield to ideology.

The Supreme Court did not solve America’s cultural divisions. It reminded us whose responsibility they are.

That is the forgotten genius of federalism.

A free people cannot forever outsource self-government to nine justices in Washington. Sooner or later, our democracy requires citizens to do the hard work themselves.

Perhaps the future of women’s sports — and constitutional government itself — depends on whether we still remember how.

​America, Christians, Clarence thomas, Female athletes, Scotus, Scripture, State laws, State legislatures, Supreme court, Trans athletes, Women’s sports, Opinion & analysis 

On Wednesday, July 8, President Donald Trump left Turkey, where he was attending a NATO summit in Ankara with other world leaders to discuss security issues, including the conflict involving Iran. Before the plane departed, reporters who attended the summit were told something odd: Lower your window shades.

When asked about the unusual request, President Trump nonchalantly explained that it was likely due to security reasons.

“You’re probably on a dangerous flight because of the sleazebags that we have to deal with. … I’m number one on [Iran’s] list,” he remarked casually.

Glenn Beck found this moment deeply significant.

As someone who’s received many credible threats over the years, Glenn believes that Trump’s detached comments indicate he’s “made peace” with the deadly implications of having a giant target on his back.

“He is finding a way that he can compartmentalize this and go on with his life and be out in public,” Glenn speculates.

He notes that Trump took his fancy Qatari-gifted Boeing 747-8 to Turkey but returned on the traditional Air Force One, likely because it’s far more heavily armored and equipped with full military-grade protections.

“Turkey shares a border with Iran. Iran has drones and ballistic missiles,” Glenn says, adding that the Qatari plane was sent ahead without Trump on it because “it wasn’t safe bringing [Trump] home past Iran’s front door.”

But Glenn sees this moment as far more than a security footnote. It also reveals how Trump is mentally preparing for the very real possibility that Iran will try to assassinate him and what the deadly difference is between open war and covert murder.

“Now, if Iran killed Trump, if they used a missile and it was executed by the army, it’s not an assassination. … If they bring a guy in out of a uniform and they just have a rocket … and they point it up at the sky and they take [Trump’s plane] out, then it’s murder, it’s terror, and it’s an assassination,” he explains, noting that either scenario would culminate in steep consequences for Iran.

“Four months ago at the beginning of this war, America and Israel killed the top guy, supreme leader, and we called that a strike, an operation, practically a Tuesday,” Glenn continues. “And the president said it out loud that he got Khamenei before Khamenei could get him — same verb pointed both directions.”

“Whose hand is on the trigger” is of paramount importance, he argues, because it determines the difference between “war and murder,” “the soldier and the assassin.”

“[The killing of Khamenei] was done by the uniformed forces of nations in daylight in a war. What Iran has tried to do to Trump was hire a man, cash for killing, arranged in the dark to be carried out by a hired hand who would slip out of the country before the deed was done,” Glenn contrasts. “Not a soldier — an assassin; not a war — murder.”

“The entire point of the laws of war, the thing that separates us from the pit, is that even killing has limits,” he explains. “Who? How? When? In the open or in the dark?”

How we answer these questions determines whether we remain a civilized nation that still believes in rules — even in war — or whether we descend into the kind of lawless chaos our enemies thrive on.

To hear more, watch the video above.

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​The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, Donald trump, Air force one, Iran 

The sitting government in the United Kingdom is looking to implement more control over the internet before it leaves office.

The next general election in the United Kingdom is set for 2029, which leaves Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Labour Party plenty of time to continue down the road of online dominance.

‘This is the opposite of “British freedoms.”‘

Last year, the U.K. decided it was time to roll out mandatory digital ID, saying it would protect against illegal employment and stop the infiltration of its borders.

This June, a social media ban on children under 16 years old was announced, backed by that implementation of online ID, which would then force users to prove their age or face an invasion of their camera rolls.

As Blaze Media reported, the idea was to “prevent predators” from exploiting victims, with anyone refusing to submit their ID unable to “take, share, or view nude content.”

Now, the push for further government control of the online world seems to be coming out in full force, especially considering culture secretary Lisa Nandy’s green paper on misinformation, reminiscent of 2019.

Nearly seven years ago, YouTube began its open-air boosting and deboosting of content based on “authoritative” sources. This meant that select news companies would have their content always listed at the top of searches, while independent creators would be pushed down or shadow banned entirely.

Instead of using the term “authoritative,” Nandy’s paper cites “trustworthy” news sources nearly 30 times, which would be placed in “prominence” — mentioned almost 60 times — over other sources online, by decree of government.

RELATED: At America 250, Democrats unveil new surveillance state blueprint

Matthew Chattle/Future Publishing/Getty Images

That brings beleaguered subjects to virtual private networks, thought to be the next target for the U.K. government. VPNs allow users to fake their locations, avoiding data detection and restrictions while making their browsing more private.

This may seem like a small issue, but VPNs are integral to online privacy in the U.K., according to many dissidents.

“VPNs are one of the few remaining tools ordinary British citizens have to protect their online privacy from both the state and big tech,” said Lewis Brackpool, director of investigations for right-wing party Restore Britain.

“Banning them would effectively hand the government near-total visibility into what people read, watch, and say online. This is the opposite of ‘British freedoms,'” Brackpool added.

Brackpool is not the only person who shares this view; in a scathing review of the Labour Party’s handling of online content, outlet Spiked reported that 30 people are arrested every day in England and Wales over social media posts deemed to be “grossly offensive.”

That totals more than 10,000 arrests per year.

RELATED: NANNY STATE: UK’s pointless teen social media ban a fitting legacy for hapless, hated Keir Starmer

Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Some in the Labour Party have denied that a VPN ban is coming, including Baroness Liz Lloyd, who holds the title parliamentary under-secretary of state for the digital economy.

There is “limited evidence on children’s use of VPNs,” Lloyd said this week, per Birmingham Live. She added that the government has no plan to ban them.

However, the Labour Party still launched a consultation to “confront the full range of risks children face online,” which included the options to limit VPN use if it “undermines safety protections and changing the age of digital consent.”

A VPN ban is not about stopping serious criminals; they will still use encrypted apps and offshore services, Brackpool says.

“It’s more about making it harder for normal people to bypass censorship, access unfiltered news, or organize against government policy.”

Brackpool, who has arguably set the tone in the U.K. in keeping the government accountable for its alleged media propaganda push, said that banning VPNs is another way for the state to say, “We don’t trust you with your own internet. We’ll decide what you can access.”

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​News, United kingdom, Censorship, Vpn, Digital id, Tech 

Christopher Nolan’s upcoming adaptation of “The Odyssey” is already generating plenty of controversy, as conservatives are pointing out that the casting of the film is “woke.”

“Christopher Nolan went from making a more realistic “Batman,” which is something that I really enjoyed, especially the first “Batman,” “Batman Begins,” to now making a movie about Greece starring black people,” Dave Landau tells co-host Stu Burguiere on “Stu and Dave Do America.”

The film stars Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy, which both Stu and Dave point out is historically inaccurate for ancient Greece.

“There’s a huge African-American population in ancient Greece,” Stu jokes. “People don’t realize that.”

“I will say, like, historical accuracy is sort of a weird thing. … You go back in the day, maybe some of these people didn’t exist in these civilizations, but this is a fictional story,” he continues. “I mean, you know it’s a myth, right?”

“It is Greek mythology, I understand that, and you want a lot of the people to be Greek, but at the same time, I don’t really care,” Dave says, though he points out there are some choices he doesn’t quite agree with.

“For example, he put in rapper Travis Scott,” he explains.

Nolan also cast “Elliot” Page as Greek soldier Sinon.

“This is part of a long-term process where, you know, Ellen Page is trying to convince us that she’s a he. And, you know, unlike a lot of the people I see walking around that are trans, she’s putting the work in, right?”

In one photo of the cast, Page, who is 5’1″, stood in front of her other cast members in a suit.

“It looks like a suit you would get for a ring bearer,” Dave comments.

“And you’d be like, ‘It’s fine. It’s for one day, and if we keep it, you can grow into it,’” he jokes.

“That’s exactly what it looks like,” Stu laughs. “You know, a couple things I noticed … she looks like a kid that is, you know, trying to wear a suit for the first time around all these adults. And also it’s, like, a huge suit on her.”

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​Batman, Christopher nolan, Dave landau, Ellen page, Elliot page, Greece, Lupita nyongo, Stu burguiere, The odyssey, Trans, Travis scott, Stu and dave do america 

The United States has a new senator after the sudden and unexpected death of Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator for South Carolina.

Graham’s term will be finished out by his sister, Darline Graham Nordone, who was appointed by Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster.

‘To Lindsey, I miss you more than I can even put into words. But I’m going to do this. I got it.’

Nordone accepted the appointment in a news conference Monday with McMaster in Columbia, South Carolina.

“I want to thank the governor for selecting me to serve the remainder of Lindsey’s term,” she said. “It is such an honor. Lindsey has always been there for me, and now I will be there for him.”

Graham’s death was announced early Sunday morning.

“It is such a privilege to get to finish some of his important work, and I promise to work hard over the next several months to support the president and carry forward the efforts of my brother on behalf of the citizens of South Carolina and the United States,” Nordone continued.

“I know Lindsey thought the world of his staff and colleagues, and with their support, I feel confident. I think this is what Lindsey would have wanted, and I plan to honor him in this way,” she said.

“Now, to Lindsey, I miss you more than I can even put into words. But I’m going to do this. I got it. Thank you.”

Long before his decades-long career in the Senate, Graham lost his mother and father within 15 months in his early 20s. He took on the role of raising and caring for his sister, who was 13 years old at the time. He later became her legal guardian.

“Lindsey assured me that he was going to take care of me, he was going to be there for me,” she said about her brother in 2014. “He never let me down. Never. I don’t see how he did it, to take on the responsibility of raising a little sister.”

A preliminary medical report found that Graham died of an aortic dissection caused by arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

RELATED: Lindsey Graham and Elon Musk feuded over Ukraine and electric car subsidies

Graham had been a vocal opponent of President Donald Trump but became an ally of his after he won the presidency.

“Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known, is dead!” Trump wrote in a post on social media. “He was always working, and was a true American Patriot. Lindsey will be greatly missed!!!”

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​Lindsey graham, South carolina, Darline graham nordone, Us senate, Politics 

Longtime GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.) broke nearly a month of silence on Sunday, releasing a statement to update the public on his health after spending weeks in the hospital.

McConnell, 84, said he was hospitalized after suffering “a fall” that left him “briefly unconscious.” He dismissed speculation that the incident was caused by a more serious condition, saying, “I didn’t have a heart attack or a stroke. I don’t have any tumors or hemorrhages.”

‘A short, unedited video of Senator McConnell speaking directly to the people he represents would answer far more questions than another written statement and a single still photograph.’

“I’ve also had to deal with a mild case of pneumonia,” McConnell added.

The press release originally included a photo of the senator in a hospital bed alongside his wife, Elaine Chao. The image was later removed from the statement before being re-uploaded separately to McConnell’s website.

Yet, rather than easing speculation surrounding McConnell’s health, this recent development has only seemed to fuel further uncertainty.

Former Republican Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz shared his own skepticism, writing, “Let’s see you say it. A written statement is far different than saying it on camera.”

In a lengthy X post, Kylie Jane Kremer, former producer for Fox’s Sean Hannity, expressed her frustration with the press release she claims ”still doesn’t answer the fundamental questions about Mitch McConnell’s health.”

“Tax payers have paid McConnell’s salary and healthcare costs for over 49 years! A short, unedited video of Senator McConnell speaking directly to the people he represents would answer far more questions than another written statement and a single still photograph.”

Kremer also addressed Scott Jennings’ unverified claim that he and McConnell “talked for just shy of 20 minutes … about IRAN, UKRAINE, the unfolding situation in MAINE, my visit to the TR Presidential Library, and even a little bit of Senate history.”

“Yet when those claims have been questioned, no independent evidence of those conversations has been made public,” Kremer said.

RELATED: Mitch McConnell’s replacement might be chosen in court first

Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office

On June 14 — the day McConnell was hospitalized — EMS dispatch audio published by an independent journalist suggests medics performed CPR on an “unconscious” individual in “cardiac arrest” at McConnell’s home address. The senator, however, is not mentioned by name in any recordings.

The press release comes just one day after the unexpected passing of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). The cause of death has been attributed to an aortic dissection. Graham was 71 years old.

McConnell’s office did not respond to Blaze News’ request for comment regarding the removal and subsequent reposting of the photograph.

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​Politics, Mitch mcconnell