Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) was scandalized when TMZ reporter Jacob Wass caught up with him on Thursday and asked him to vouch for the authenticity of Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) proof-of-life photo from the hospital, after he spent weeks recovering from severe cardiac issues.
"Is the Mitch McConnell photo of him in the hospital real or fake?" asked Wass.
"I think that it's real," said Marshall. "I don't understand why anyone would think otherwise. Look, Mitch McConnell has been through so much adversity in his life, he grew up with polio, fought that for years on end, and still has a battle."
"I've taken him at his word ... and I'm almost insulted you would ask," Marshall added.
"You can't even say whether or not it's definitively real or not," Wass pressed him.
"I think this is insulting to me, it's insulting to Mitch McConnell," said Marshall.
"It's not meant to be insulting," said Wass.
"Well, I don't care what you mean," said Marshall, raising his voice. "It's insulting that you didn't understand my answer that I think it's real. I didn't take the picture, so how would I know? Let's go back to real issues."
"This isn't something that's a conspiracy — I mean it is a bit of a conspiracy theory, but it's a mainstream discussion," insisted Wass. "Even Republicans, I just talked to Rick Scott, and he said, I don't know, couldn't give a definitive answer."
"This is a conspiracy theory," said Marshall. "Mitch McConnell has been a great senator up here for America. I think he deserves a little bit more respect than this. And I wouldn't know why otherwise. I think we should be talking about other, real issues up here, like the cost of gas, the cost of groceries, that's what we should be talking about." He then turned around and left as Wass tried to follow up.
McConnell's proof-of-life photo has been the subject of a great deal of speculation. Some people have tried to insist that the image is either AI-generated, for which there is no evidence, or was taken at some point in the past, which McConnell already tried to head off by including the day's Washington Post front page in the picture.