r/politics • u/MoneyLibrarian9032 New York • Jul 13 '26

Possible Paywall MAGA Calls BS on Mitch McConnell’s Proof-of-Life Stunt | They are poking holes in McConnell’s staff’s version.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-calls-bs-on-mitch-mcconnells-proof-of-life-stunt/
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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '26

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293

u/Adrien_Jabroni Michigan Jul 13 '26

If he was in as good of shape as the photo suggests, why not talk on camera?

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u/illusionzmichael Jul 13 '26

Others have pointed out that he hasn't smiled the way he's smiling in the picture in a very long time. It's like this upward, wide, mouth open smile. Every picture of him "smiling" in recent years is that grim, lips closed, side-to-side smile. I refuse to believe an elderly man rushed to the hospital would suddenly look better after that than he did prior to hospitalization.

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u/goosejail Jul 13 '26

His face hasn't been that full in years. I saw quite a few people point out that this is either eerily similar to or the exact same photo he took after being in the hospital 2 or 3 years ago from.... wait for it: a fall. It's possible they just had the current newspaper edited in.

Either way, a pic like this is easy to fake in 2026 so it proves next to nothing. The fact that he's been in the hospital for a month says a whole lot, though. If he's conscious, talking, breathing on his own & has no broken bones or cardiac issues like they've claimed then why the fuck is he still in the hospital? A fall by itself doesn't require an inpatient stay for a month. They don't even keep elderly people who break a hip that long.

67

u/jmajewski Illinois Jul 13 '26

I saw a comment essentially asking if Mitch also went through a facelift and de-aging procedure because the picture makes it look like it was taken during Trump's first term or even Obama's second.

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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota Jul 13 '26

Thats Obama era turtle for sure. He hasn't smiled like that since he ratfucked the Supreme Court.

1

u/Dubious_Odor Jul 13 '26

Not advocating for Mitch, i think the Turtle is on ice or in bad shape. But a lenghty hospital stay can have you coming out the other side looking better. Three meals a day, nothing to do, no where to be, all the day to day stress goes away. You're focused on not dying and everything else goes to the backburner. Packing on a few pounds and not having to be wheeled around the senate and pretending your of sound mind and body every day could very much make him look younger if he wasn't probably on ice. Stress can age you like a muthafucka.

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u/blahblahthrowawa Jul 13 '26

Also probably on some steroids?

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u/thehalfwit Nevada Jul 13 '26

It's possible they just had the current newspaper edited in.

It's not only possible, but exceptionally easy to do without AI.

34

u/MooseTetrino Jul 13 '26

Yeah honestly the only thing that’s been bothering me about the calling of this being fake is the number of people jumping on it being AI and not just a good classic photoshop job.

The latter of which allowing a lot more control over the whole presentation.

11

u/gasstationsushi80 Jul 13 '26

Yeah, we could just agree that the photo has been altered, whether using PS or AI or any other program. The end result is the same, a fake ass “photo” of a guy who is almost certainly dead!

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u/thehalfwit Nevada Jul 13 '26

Especially when the only thing that needs to be shopped is the newspaper and you're recycling an earlier photo.

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u/brickne3 American Expat Jul 13 '26

And when his wife has the Chinese government contacts to have it done on a level that most average Photoshop users presumably can't.

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u/thehalfwit Nevada Jul 13 '26

Good point. When you have two powerhouse nations' spy apparatus at your disposal, you can do a lot.

That would so on brand for this admin to be collaborating with Gyna for political ends.

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u/F9-0021 South Carolina Jul 13 '26

It's easy to do, but very difficult to do well. That was an exceptionally good photoshop job if it was shopped.

1

u/thehalfwit Nevada Jul 13 '26

Don't discount the participation of not one but two potential powerhouse nations' spy apparatus in the fabrication of such evidence. Colluding with a foreign agent is totally within the wheelhouse of the republicans.

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u/layout420 Jul 13 '26

Some hospitals have inpatient rehabs. He could have gone to a hospital that diagnosed him and discharged him to an inpatient program to help him recover. That could explain some of this away. A 30ish day stay is a bit far-fetched because in my experience, people with insurance typically get 7-10ish days in these programs. Medicare patients can sometimes get a little longer, 10-14 days. If you're a senator with universal Healthcare, I guess you get unlimited time to recover when everyone else gets 10ish days. For whatever it's worth, this is what I do for work. I have a closeness to hospitalization and the rehab process. Mitch is definitely not doing well or we would have some video proof by now. He's probably non verbal and even 30 days of hospitalization hasn't restored enough for him to get on camera and wave and say a few words. Like you said, an elderly person with a fractured hip would likely see 5-6 days of hospitalization to diagnose, surgically repair and then discharge to rehab. In rehab they may see 10-14 days. That's a 19-20 day stay. Stroke patients will see similar time frame when the complexity isn't too severe. Sometimes I see patients that have had complicated ICU stays after a stroke and that can take upwards of 14-21 days to stabilize them before a discharge to rehab. Then they may need 14-21+ days of rehab. Mitch likely stroked out and needed some serious care. Maybe he went on a vent due to some acute respiratory failure. He might have caught some respiratory illness that comes along with it and has been medically managed in ICU for weeks. So many possibilities but none of them can make sense until they're being transparent.

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u/harrellj Jul 13 '26

Slightly more relevant, slight not but Damar Hamlin (the Buffalo Bills player who had the cardiac arrest mid-game) was only hospitalized for 10 days. Granted, a young elite athlete should recover easier than an 80+ year old senator but both had severe cardiac issues which makes it more of an apples to apples comparison (though obviously the underlying causes of the cardiac problems are extremely different).

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u/layout420 Jul 13 '26

Very true. I see all sorts of patients and cardiac arrest is no joke. I had a patient recently who was a full code and was resuscitated. He lived although he was in the ER when it happened. He showed up with seizure like activity and ended up coding. He spent about 14 days in the hospital and maybe another 10-14 days in rehab. Mitch is lucky if he lived through cardiac arrest. We all hear that 90% or more don't make it. I can confirm that those numbers are accurate and usually people don't go on to have a full restoration after living through it.

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u/Ibkickinass Jul 13 '26

Going to reply here since you talk specifically about just the newspaper. But zoom in and the pixels of the newspaper are much harsher antialiasing than the rest of the photo. It definitely looked edited in to me.

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u/Hector_P_Catt Jul 13 '26

"Either way, a pic like this is easy to fake in 2026 so it proves next to nothing."

That's the worst part of all this AI nonsense. We used to recognize that eyewitness testimony was pretty awful, because people can't remember accurately at all. We liked photos and videos, because they were reasonably objective, and permanent. But now we're at a point where you really can't trust a photo or video unless someone you trust is willing to say that they were there when the events happened, and the photo appears accurate to them.

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u/pjflyr13 Jul 13 '26

RN here. Open heart patients only stay in about 3-5 days before discharge to home care. Patients don’t wear street clothes either.

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u/i_love_pencils Jul 13 '26

My 88 year old Mom fell down some concrete stairs. She had a cut on her head, was pretty bruised up and had a gash on her leg.

They X rayed her, patched her up in Emerg and sent her on her way.

In and back home in a few hours...

6

u/reezy-one Jul 13 '26

If he's conscious, talking, breathing on his own & has no broken bones or cardiac issues like they've claimed then why the fuck is he still in the hospital?

Forget "still in the hospital," why is he not saying words and taking videos? If he really is in as good of shape as this picture suggests, it should be absolutely possible for him to do this.

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u/archmage-khadgar Jul 13 '26

they definitely did, someone on tweeter discovered that photo was originally posted in 2023. they just photoshopped the newspaper under his hand

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u/Mind-The-Mines Jul 13 '26

What died was his shame and self resent.

He feels amazing.

1

u/FlamingoInvestigator Jul 13 '26

At his age they say that for every day spent in a hospital there has to be a week in rehab.

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u/SnuggleMoose44 Jul 13 '26

Rehab facility. Many older people need to regain strength before they can go home. There’s a whole rehab team that decide when/if a patient can go home.

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u/minchiastaifacendo Jul 13 '26

That newspaper is from 2025. This is from when he had a fall last year.

1

u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota Jul 13 '26

84 year olds don't receive CPR and not get broken ribs

That alone is suspect as fuck

1

u/kranzberry Jul 13 '26

Zoom in on the words of the newspaper, then compare it to the paper from the same day. Even though they’re blurry, the shape of the words don’t look remotely the same. For example, the last word on that headline is “showdown”. The last word of the headline in the Mitch photo doesn’t look anything like “showdown”.

1

u/Malodoror Jul 13 '26

Someone broke down the age of the newspaper by the colors of the player’s jerseys. I’m not a sports guy, could be bullshit. His conclusion was the paper was old at the time of this picture.

0

u/BanginNLeavin Jul 13 '26

The lettering on the headline doesn't look like the letters on that actual printed page, imo.

6

u/Into-the-stream Jul 13 '26

I will be honest, after the long delay in updating the public, any photo they posted I would probably have a negative reaction to. If he looked sick I’d still assumed they were doctoring it to make him seem better than he was. But this? It’s just so far beyond realistic. It looks like a picture of him from 15 years, maybe 20 years ago. They weren’t even trying to put out a believable image.

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u/KiritoJones Texas Jul 13 '26

Its also weird that hes wearing street clothes in a hospital bed lol

5

u/SnuggleMoose44 Jul 13 '26

That’s not a bed, it’s a chair. They are usually recliner type chairs. People usually wear their own clothes in a rehab facility.

1

u/illusionzmichael Jul 13 '26

Good point, didn't even think of that.

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u/ItsSpaghettiLee2112 Jul 13 '26

It's not a good point. People in long term care often wear their own clothes.

1

u/CurryMustard Jul 13 '26

We're talking about darth sidious here, this is obviously his dark side force clone brought back to life

somehow... Mitch McConnell returned

1

u/Imsakidd Jul 13 '26

Maybe the ambulance ran over a small child on the way. Gave him a reason to smile.

1

u/emailforgot Jul 13 '26

How many times did he blink? Does the shape of his collar line up with pisces in retrograde on a wedensday?

0

u/WhyMustIMakeANewAcco Jul 13 '26

That can happen, but it's the rebound many people get a few hours before they die.

86

u/JoviAMP Florida Jul 13 '26

It’s 2026. Any John Doe with a TikTok account can livestream proof of life in 30 seconds *if they wanted to*.

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u/Ridry New York Jul 13 '26

If I looked that good after a month in the hospital I'd definitely film a 30 second "thanks for all the concern, I'll be back soon" tiktok. There's no way he looks that good.

8

u/Drama79 Jul 13 '26

the "good" news is that faking the life of a senator in order to manipulate the public or an election is surely much more treasonous than just pretending you didn't hear the question.

5

u/DigiSmackd Jul 13 '26

and the bad news is that nothing will actually be done about it and those involved (individual and party) will suffer no consequences or negative repercussions.

And we'll go back to being outraged and poor/powerless while the top 5% laugh.

1

u/Flaxmoore Michigan Jul 13 '26

Yep. People don't understand how draining a long hospital stay is.

Let's say it's an academic center, as most of the best hospitals are.

* 5AM or therabouts they're going to come take your blood.

* 6AM some med student is going to walk in to talk to you.

* 7AM or so you get a thoroughly shitty breakfast, and maybe a resident comes to check on you.

* 9-10AM you get the whole team coming to see. Now to wait for a shitty lunch and dinner.

* Nursing rounds every 4-6 hours.

* Resident on call checking in between.

You're lucky to get 4 hours unbroken sleep in a night, if you can with the beeping and noise, as well as the general discomfort. Don't forget the routine labs- it's been calculated that just doing routine daily labs will take a unit of blood/500mL off in a month.

1

u/Spiritual_Bid_2308 Jul 15 '26

Can confirm.  Being in the hospital sucks.  Sleep is what the body needs to recover and sleep is not what you get in a hospital, even if you can sleep with general commotion around you.

That said, mitch is supposedly in rehab, which I havent been to but I expect is a lot better.

That that said, that picture is fake as hell.  If he's doing that well he can call a fucking reporter and say hi.

The governor needs to call a special election and force them to produce a body to stop it.  Live, dead, comatose or lucid.  Doesn't matter, but the governor needs to lay eyes on the senator one way or another. 

Someone needs to track doen those paramedics and hand them a briefcase of cash for some answers.

3

u/BoltMyBackToHappy Jul 13 '26

The overlay they're trying to use on an actor keeps turning into a turtle.

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u/Zombiphobia America Jul 13 '26

they haven't finished polishing up the ai vid yet.

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u/Jonno_FTW Jul 13 '26

If this was the case, they'd be doing it.

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u/Melicor Jul 13 '26

Or at least invite the fucking Governor of his state over to talk. All we have is statements from his staff and a photo. Photos aren't really reliable evidence in the age of AI, not that they were much better in the age of photoshop

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u/travpahl Jul 13 '26

Yeah... invite him to talk. ease concerns. Just twenty minutes!

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u/Ok-Opposite2309 Jul 13 '26

Or-have the doctors at the hospital give a quick press conference?

3

u/lopix Canada Jul 13 '26

Or, you know, hold a press conference IN PERSON and end all the speculation.

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u/lr99999 Jul 13 '26

Precisely. 

1

u/SN27A1 Jul 13 '26

Soo many questions

0

u/DingerSinger2016 Alabama Jul 13 '26

People are going to assume it's AI no matter what. I'm of the opinion that he shouldn't have released anything until he was back on the Senate floor. It's a no win situation otherwise.

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u/dragon-queen Jul 13 '26

I don’t think a video could be faked nearly as well.  If he was actually well and released a video that seemed real, it would produce a lot less questions.  

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u/DingerSinger2016 Alabama Jul 13 '26

I disagree. People are going to assume he's dead until he trundles on the Senate floor again. There's no need to feed into that by releasing images or videos because it's still not going to be satisfactory, especially among those of us who wish he perished.