Asked for her reaction to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s latest freezing incident, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley reiterated a point she's made before: lawmakers need to “know when to leave.”
“No one should feel good about seeing that any more than we should feel good about seeing Dianne Feinstein, any more than we should feel good about a lot of what’s happening or seeing Joe Biden’s decline,” Haley said on Fox News. “What I will say is, right now, the Senate is the most privileged nursing home in the country.”
After Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) public health scare yesterday, Nikki Haley calls the Senate "the most privileged nursing home in the country." @HeartlandSignal
— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) August 31, 2023
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McConnell froze for about 30 seconds on Wednesday after being asked whether he’d run for re-election at a press conference in Kentucky. The incident marks the second time in recent weeks that the GOP leader has experienced a health scare in front of reporters.
While he’s been cleared by the Attending Physician of the United States Congress to return to work as normal, that hasn’t tamped down concerns about the advanced age of many lawmakers, with Haley suggesting politicians pass a “mental competency test" for septuagenarians.
“I think that we do need mental competency tests for anyone over the age of 75, I wouldn’t care if they did them over the age of 50,” said Haley, who also supports term limits. “But these are people making decisions on our national security. They’re making decisions on our economy, on the border. We need to know they’re at the top of their game.”
Haley's comments come after a recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey found 68 percent of respondents are in favor of age limits for House and Senate candidates, while 66 percent said they support an age ceiling for presidential candidates.