US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will step down as the Senate Republican leader in November, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday, citing a copy of his prepared remarks.
McConnell, 82, represents the state of Kentucky and is the longest-serving Senate leader in history.
McConnell's spokesman Doug Andres reposted on X the AP report along with a note to tune in to C-SPAN at 12:30 p.m. Punchbowl News reported the long-serving leader from Kentucky planned to announce the move at a Republican lunch meeting.
McConnell said that he plans to serve out his term as Senator, which is slated to end in January of next year, the Press reported. Aides of the senator stressed that his decision to step down was unrelated to his health.
Regarding concerns about his health, the Kentucky senator made headlines last year, most notably in public press conference incidences where his face froze while he was giving statements. The Press cites McConnell's colleagues as saying that in recent months that McConnell has fully recovered.
The Kentucky senator's statements, which were obtained by the Associated Press, read as follows: “One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter. So I stand before you today ... to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.
Further statements by McConnell of his departure
“As I have been thinking about when I would deliver some news to the Senate, I always imagined a moment when I had total clarity and peace about the sunset of my work,” he continued.
"I turned 82 last week. The end of my contributions are closer than I prefer," McConnell said on the Senate floor, his voice breaking with emotion. "Father Time remains undefeated. I'm no longer the young man sitting in the back hoping colleagues remember my name. It's time for the next generation of leadership."
The 82-year-old Kentucky lawmaker's departure will remove a central character in negotiations with Democrats and the White House on spending deals to keep the federal government funded and avert a shutdown.
It will also mark the step back of an orderly counterpart to the tumultuous approach of Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, and the hardline House Freedom Caucus ahead of the November election for president, the full House of Representatives and a third of the Senate.
And it will cap the career of a lawmaker reviled by Democrats for having used unprecedented tactics to cement a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority that has acted aggressively to end the national right to abortion and expand gun rights.
Now with Republicans having to elect a new party leader, conservative pressure to hang tough against a moderate spending deal with Democrats could weigh more heavily on the budget negotiations and the leadership election.
McConnell lashed out at the twice-impeached Trump for falsely claiming that widespread fraud cost him the 2020 election, the theme of the then-president's speech on January 6, 2021, shortly before his followers stormed the US Capitol. The Senate leader had voted to acquit Trump of having incited an insurrection but alienated him in a Senate speech by asserting that he was "practically and morally responsible" for the Capitol riot.
He gleefully embraced the nickname "Grim Reaper" for his willingness to stonewall Democratic goals.