Stories of the week on 'The Debrief'
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
And it is time now for the debrief when we're going to look back at some of the biggest stories of the week. I'm joined by Jack Horgan-Jones, political correspondent with the Irish Times. Larry Donnelly is here, law lecturer from the University of Galway and columnist with the Journal. And Deirdre Reynolds, who's a feature writer with the Irish Independent. I want to go back, Larry, because you're an American, I think that you're going to know where Mitch McConnell is. We were talking about him earlier on. This is the Republican senator who went into hospital in June. Nobody knows how he is or where he is, really. I mean, what do you think's going on?
Well, it's a strange one. I mean, I was saying beforehand, it almost reminds me of the days back in the Soviet Union where we never knew whether people were alive or dead. He seems to be in a hospital. We don't know where he is. And multiple conservatives have come out saying that they've been speaking to him on the phone. Notably, Scott Jennings, the prominent CNN commentator who used to work for Mitch McConnell, he said that, yeah, he spoke to him, but he was asked, is he fit to serve in the United States Senate? And he said... he's keeping up on the news. That was about all he could say. My sense is he's probably in a pretty bad condition. Another notable thing about this is his wife went to China three days after he was hospitalized.
I was talking to Hilary McGann about this. Now, she said there's a possibility that she was in China when he was hospitalized and that it was confirmed that she'd had a meeting three days after he was hospitalized. So it may have been just that she was there.
What is the mystery around Mitch McConnell's health and whereabouts?
It may have been, but what we're seeing today for the first time is that there was an ambulance that went. He evidently, he may have collapsed, but it was just he was brought out of his house on a stretcher in Washington, D.C. So there's all sorts of things floating around. One thing that I initially had thought was that perhaps this was because the Democratic governor of Kentucky, which is unusual for Kentucky to have a Democratic governor. could appoint a replacement, but that's not true. There would have to be a special election. So all of this, in my view, probably comes down to Mitch McConnell, who has been in the Senate forever and is extremely unwilling to leave, literally to be carried out on a stretcher.
That's the only way he's going to go. So again, it points to a bigger truth in American politics, which is that on both sides of the aisle, there are way too many politicians hanging on for way, way too long. Mitch McConnell has not been well for a while. Arguably, he should have stood aside previously. But once these people get into a position like that, they just can't be clawed out of it. And I think that's sad. And I think it's a really shocking indictment of American political culture.
Jack, the Democrats have to be careful to be pointing the finger here, can't they? I mean, look what they went through with Joe Biden.
Well, exactly. This is it. You know, any Democrat who is seeking to make political capital out of this, I think, is probably out on something of a limb because they put out a presidential candidate who was quite clearly in fairly dramatic cognitive decline. And they just sort of hoped that nobody would notice. And they did. And as Larry was saying, you know, it's part of the kind of... the rottenness of American political culture at the moment that you have these big political beasts squatting over seats and whether it's due to just the inertia and the inability of the political system to renew itself or whether it's just due to the power that these people have. The accumulated political power over generations.
I don't think it's necessarily healthy for American democracy or indeed for any democracy not to have a bit of a clear out from time to time. I mean, and it's not confined, as we said, to one side of the aisle. I mean, Dianne Feinstein, I think, who was a Democratic senator, she cast the vote the day before she died of recollection.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–1:32
2
What is the mystery around Mitch McConnell's health and whereabouts?
1:32–4:52
3
How does McConnell's situation reveal problems with long-serving politicians?
4:52–8:33
4
Why would a special election, not an appointment, follow a Senate vacancy in Kentucky?
8:33–19:12
5
What are the latest controversies and costs driving debate over Dublin's Metro project?
19:12–19:44