Mitch McConnell

After Mitch McConnell was hospitalized on June 14, his office let wild speculation about his health fester for a full month. Then on Sunday, hours after the death of another GOP senator, McConnell released a statement saying he had fallen at home and briefly lost consciousness, then developed a “mild case of pneumonia.” The Kentuckian also released a proof-of-life photo, which was styled to look like we just happened to catch him smiling with his wife, Elaine Chao, while perusing Sunday’s Washington Post sports section.

Unsurprisingly, this didn’t deter the MAGA conspiracy theorists or the casual Mitch meme enthusiasts.

If we take off our tinfoil hats for a moment, is there really any reason to believe this photo of McConnell is AI-generated or based on some mysterious 2023 photo? In a word, no. A Washington Post analysis found there’s nothing suspicious about the photo itself:

On Monday night, The Post reviewed a copy of the original photo — provided by McConnell’s office at The Post’s request — and found that its metadata appears to show it was taken Sunday.

The outlet consulted with an independent digital-forensics expert who agreed that it appears to be legitimate:

Hany Farid, a digital forensics professor at the University of California at Berkeley, examined the photo and said there is no evidence that the image is fake or AI generated. He said that neither McConnell’s nor Chao’s face looks suspicious, according to an analytical model he used to examine the image. He said that the picture’s lighting is plausible and consistent, and that what is visible of the newspaper in McConnell’s hand is consistent with that day’s Post Sports section.

Farid noted that some AI-altered versions of the photo that have been circulating on social media show floating text and hallucinated text on the newspaper, but that the photo McConnell’s office sent did not have high enough resolution to show legible text.

But MAGA influencers refuse to accept that the photo is real. Laura Loomer, who claime that McConnell was “brain dead” on July 6, said the image does not disprove her bold prognosis:

When contacted by the Post, Loomer declined to retract any of her claims about McConnell:

She stood by her claims in a phone interview Monday, in which she did not provide substantiating evidence but said no one at the White House had asked her to correct her public comments about McConnell’s condition or the photo. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It’s not just online kooks keeping the Mitch conspiracy theories alive. Some elected kooks have raised doubts about the photo’s validity, too. When asked about the photo during a Monday appearance on Real America’s Voice, Senator Ron Johnson said, “I just heard from some, some other source, that was an older photo, so I really don’t know”:

The Wisconsin senator seemed to be alluding to the theory that the Sunday photo is a doctored version of an image McConnell released in 2023 (the Post said it “could not find any such picture,” and others have noted this just makes no sense). But Johnson walked back his remarks on Tuesday, explaining his “source” was just something he heard on TV.

“Well, a TV host was saying it was AI, and I just said, ‘Well, you know, I’d heard that maybe it wasn’t the most recent photo.’ Yeah, I have no idea. I mean, just discount all that,” Johnson said.

When asked what he thinks of the photo and McConnell’s health update, President Trump gave a noncommittal answer (after pointing out that he was “never a huge fan” of the former majority leader).

“I hope he’s going to be fine,” Trump said. “I don’t know if he’s fine.”

Our conspiracy theorist–in–chief has avoided weighing in on the McConnell health mystery all along. Which, when you think about it, is actually pretty suspicious …