New Elaine Chao Photo Has Many Doubting Those Mitch McConnell Proof-Of-Life Photos Are Real

Look, y’all, I’m not saying Sen. Mitch McConnell is dead, I’m just saying his proof-of-life photos are really just proof-of-photos.

In fact, folks on social media are currently putting their detective lenses on as they analyze four photos: McConnell’s first proof-of-life photo with his wife, Elaine Chao, a second proof-of-life photo with Chao, supposedly taken two weeks later, a photo of Chao taken outside the rehabilitation center between the release of the two photos, and a fresh photo of Chao receiving an award and looking like a complete different Chao than the one we’ve seen in the previous photos.

People are looking at these photos and noticing that she has worn the same outfit in two of them, and that her hair looks exactly the same in three of them, but then we get a whole new Chao makeover in the fourth, which many have concluded could mean it has all just been one big cover-up.

Let’s start with the timeline.

The first photo was released by his office on July 12.

As noted by the Daily Beast — which first reported that observers were looking at these photos and determining that they might cast doubt on the idea that ol’ Mitch is still kicking — “the second appeared in a July 27 press release, with his office saying the photo had been taken a day earlier, on July 26. Both appear to have been taken in the same room.”

Now, when we first reported on the second photo McConnell’s office released, I remarked that he and his wife “changed their clothes but forgot to change their facial expressions,” which was a joke about how they look indistinguishable from what their wax figures would look like, but now I’m wondering if it was evidence of a deepfake the whole time.

Anyway, according to the Daily Beast, on July 15, Chao was photographed leaving the Washington, D.C., rehabilitation center where her husband is supposedly recovering, and she appeared to be wearing the same white button-down shirt with the peach-colored seashells and the same off-white pants she was wearing in proof-of-life photo No. 2, and her hair also looked exactly the same way it did in the two previous photos.

From the Daily Beast:

The detail has triggered questions about whether or not the second “proof of life” photo was really taken when the senator’s office says it was, and if so, why a billionaire like Chao would be recycling the same clothing.

A reverse image search of the shirt identified it as an offering of the mid-tier American retail brand Chico’s.

Her hair also appears to be the same shade and style in each image, which were supposedly taken eleven days apart.

Now, this could all mean something significant, or it could mean nothing at all. After all, Bill Gates is a billionaire, and he always looks like he rotates the same tree outfits, which all make him look like he tripped and fell backward into a JCPenney. Still, there’s also the issue of Chao’s latest photo, reportedly taken Wednesday, just three days after the second proof-of-life photo was supposedly taken. It shows the 73-year-old looking like she had received quite the glow-up, as she accepted an award for — I don’t know, something — at a lunch hosted by the Aero Club of D.C.

Again, this could mean nothing. It’s certainly possible that between posing with her husband for the second piece of “evidence” that he’s still alive and the day of the lunch, Chao finally located her full wardrobe and had time to make it to a salon where some miracle worker made her hair look much fuller and significantly lighter. I mean, she’s rich as hell. She might have an on-call hairdresser that can abracadabra her right up, with a new look that has everyone, even McConnell, saying, “Harpo, who that woman?”

Ultimately, the problem is that until McConnell records himself saying plainly that he’s still alive and well, and that video can be authenticated as not AI, all of these convenient photo dumps that just aren’t persuading anyone will always lead to the same speculation that McConnell has gone on to glory or a not-so-glorious nether world, and the photo evidence is only evidence of the lengths his office will go through to perpetuate a farce.

And here’s the thing: there’s a reason Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is making such a big public show of demanding that McConnell put up or shut up, meaning he needs to come right out and prove his “capacity to serve” or resign his Senate seat: if it’s true that McConnell had died, or that he’ll never be well enough to come back to Congress — which he has been absent from since June 11 — and Congressional Republicans know it, then this whole thing is just more of the election fraud that MAGA Republicans keep claiming the other side is guilty of with no real evidence whatsoever. Republicans are trying desperately to hold on to the slim majority they’re clinging to in the Senate, and McConnell being absent, and possibly absent from the physical world, just makes it all terribly inconvenient.

And if in the coming days, the shoe many people are waiting for to drop does drop, and it’s announced that the 84-year-old has passed away, the GOP is going to have some ‘splaining to do. Jussayin’.

SEE ALSO:

QTNA: Where In The World Is Senator Mitch McConnell?

The Internet Isn’t Buying The Mitch McConnell Proof Of Life Photo

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