An unsupported allegation about Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announcing he would resign if he did not become Senate Majority leader in the upcoming midterm elections has been retweeted at least 30,000 times on Twitter. But Reuters found no evidence McConnell has made such statement.
One of the earliest iterations Reuters identified was from the morning of June 28 (here). “Mitch McConnell said if he’s not Majority Leader after the midterms he’ll quit. I’m okay with that,” the user wrote.
Left-wing advocacy group Occupy Democrats also tweeted the claim, which had garnered over 25,000 retweets as of the writing of this article (here). A Twitter user with more than 51,800 followers replicated it as well (here).
Other iterations are viewable on Twitter (here) (here) (here) and Facebook (here) (bit.ly/3OYneDp)
Reuters found no evidence that this statement attributed to McConnell is authentic.
There is no information on his website about a possible resignation (here)
An advanced Twitter search on the verified accounts “@LeaderMcConnell” (twitter.com/LeaderMcConnell) and “@McConnellPress” (twitter.com/McConnellPress) returned no relevant results (archive.ph/wip/ppKo9); and a Google search brought no media coverage confirming the purported announcement (here)
A spokesperson for McConnell declined Reuters request for comment.
Back in January, McConnell said he would be running again for Senate leader in the November midterm elections, outlets like Politico (here) and The Hill (here) reported at the time.
High inflation and the ongoing pandemic have contributed to low poll numbers for U.S. President Joe Biden and sparked speculation that Democrats may lose control of the House of Representatives and the Senate to Republicans after the November election (here)
A Reuters explainer on what’s a stake in the upcoming midterms can be found (here).
VERDICT
No evidence. There’s no evidence that McConnell has said he might resign after the November midterm elections.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here .
