Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell announced on Tuesday that he had been released from the rehab facility he was staying at following a fall several weeks ago. 

Want Queer Kentucky’s latest in your inbox? Sign up for our newsletter here. 

“On the advice of my doctors, I’ll maintain an intensive regimen of physical therapy from home during the state work period, and I’ll continue to engage with my staff and colleagues on important Senate business,” he said in a statement. 

McConnell, 84, has not made a public appearance since being hospitalized on June 14 following what he described in a statement as a fall that left him “briefly unconscious.” 

“My doctors have confirmed that I didn’t break any bones or suffer a concussion. I didn’t have a heart attack or a stroke. I don’t have any tumors or hemorrhages,” he said in a statement in June. 

RELATED: What Can a Governor Do If a Sitting Senator Disappears?

His office published additional statements in late July saying he is still having “intense physical therapy.”

Questions have been raised about his ability to serve the remainder of his term, which ends in January 2027. Conspiracy theories emerged after McConnell’s office released two images of the senator with his wife, Elaine Chao. 

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a likely 2028 presidential contender, has called for McConnell to resign if he cannot serve in office anymore. 

“I am calling on you to directly and verbally address the people of Kentucky and provide proof of your capacity to serve, or resign,” Beshear wrote to McConnell late last month, according to the Associated Press.

McConnell’s absence has put a spotlight on a 2024 state law that changed how an empty U.S. Senate seat could be filled. Instead of the governor being allowed to select a temporary senator, it instead requires a special election to serve out the remaining term of the seat. McConnell’s term expires in January 2027.

Beshear vetoed the law, but the GOP-controlled legislature overrode the veto. There are competing claims to what could happen if a vacancy should emerge.