House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R) is not ruling out a future Senate run in his home state of Kentucky as others are questioning whether Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) is fit for office after he froze up at a podium for the second time.
“I can’t predict the future. I don’t know what’ll happen,” Comer told NBC News this week.
His comments, NBC noted, came before McConnell froze up at the podium while taking questions in Kentucky on Wednesday. The Kentucky senator asked a reporter to repeat the question twice before responding with “that’s a” and then freezing and looking ahead for about 30 seconds.
It was the second time in recent weeks the GOP leader, who has reportedly fallen multiple times this year, has paused for an extended period while fielding questions from reporters.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and other Republican pundits have suggested that it may be time for McConnell to step down after the latest incident.
Comer, who is spearheading the House GOP investigation into President Biden’s family, said in the interview that he believes in term limits and wants to return to his farming business in Monroe County.
“I certainly don’t want to be one of these people that stay in Washington forever and get old,” he said. “I think that’s not a good business model.”
Comer had previously run for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Kentucky in 2015 but ultimately lost to businessman Matt Bevin, who would end up as governor until 2019.
“I could have run for governor this time. And I don’t think a lot of the Republicans that filed would have filed if I had run. I think I could have won,” Comer said. “But I knew I had the opportunity to be chairman of this committee. I knew it would be, in my opinion, the most high-profile position in the House.”