Inside the marriage of Sen. Mitch McConnell and his wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao
Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell has been hospitalized for nearly four weeks, with few details available about his health, prompting growing questions about his condition and what members of his inner circle, including his wife, Elaine Chao, have been told.
McConnell and Chao met through a mutual friend and wed in a private Capitol ceremony in 1993, and became a GOP power couple.
McConnell has served as a US senator for over 40 years. Chao made history as the first Asian American woman to serve in a presidential Cabinet after she was confirmed as secretary of labor in 2001, during George W. Bush’s administration. In President Donald Trump’s first term, Chao was appointed transportation secretary.
McConnell’s Senate office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Here’s a look at their relationship timeline.
Mitch McConnell, 84, is one of the longest-serving lawmakers in the Senate.
He grew up in Alabama and Kentucky and became a US senator representing Kentucky in 1985. He has served as both the Senate minority leader and the Senate majority leader.
He is serving his final term and is not seeking reelection in 2026.
Elaine Chao, 73, served as the US secretary of transportation during President Trump’s first term.
Chao was the first Asian-American woman to be appointed to a presidential cabinet. She previously served as the US secretary of labor from 2001 to 2009, under President George W. Bush.
Chao moved to the US from Taiwan at age 8 and grew up in New York.
McConnell and Chao met through a mutual friend, Stuart Bloch, in Washington, DC in the early 1990s.
Bloch and McConnell met in the 1960s, The New York Times reported. Bloch was married to Julia Chang Bloch, who was a mentor of Chao’s.
Bloch told The New York Times that he invited McConnell to a candlelit dinner with Chao.
“I don’t want to say that sparks flew,” Bloch told the outlet, “because that’s not the way either of them is.”
Bloch also described Chao as a “tiger wife” who is “made of titanium.”
They married on February 6, 1993, in a private ceremony in the chapel of the US Capitol.
They chose that wedding date for three reasons, The Washington Post reported: It’s Ronald Reagan’s birthday, it was just before Chao’s 40th birthday, and it was right before a one-week Senate recess.
McConnell was previously married and has three children from that relationship.
McConnell’s first wife, Sherrill Redmon, went on to become a feminist scholar. The two divorced in 1980.
In 1998, the couple told The Washington Post how they divide household labor.
McConnell cooked once in a while and did the laundry, while Chao was responsible for fixing things around the house, The Washington Post reported.
Chao has often campaigned with her husband, becoming known as the “campaign hugger,” Time magazine reported.
McConnell had polio as a child and finds backslapping painful, so Chao has stepped in to hug constituents in his stead.
“She very actively listens. She really pays attention and remembers details about people,” Kelly Westwood, head of the Kenton County women’s Republican group, told Time in 2014. “She doesn’t see them for months and then says, ‘I know you sprained your arm, how’s it going?’ Or, ‘How’s [your] bid for city council going?’ She remembers everything.”
Chao has also starred in campaign ads defending McConnell’s record on women’s issues. In a 2014 campaign ad, she praised McConnell as a co-sponsor of the original Violence Against Women Act in 1991, despite the fact that, as Talking Points Memo pointed out, McConnell voted against the final legislation in 1993 and its reauthorizations in 2012 and 2013.
In 2017, when Trump criticized McConnell on X, Chao responded by telling reporters, “I stand by my man — both of them.”
After McConnell said the White House had “excessive expectations” for Congress at an event in Kentucky in August 2017, Trump took to X, then known as Twitter, to respond.
“Senator Mitch McConnell said I had ‘excessive expectations,’ but I don’t think so. After 7 years of hearing Repeal & Replace, why not done?” Trump wrote.
Trump posted again the following day: “Mitch, get back to work and put Repeal & Replace, Tax Reform & Cuts and a great Infrastructure Bill on my desk for signing. You can do it!”
Reporters asked Chao, who had attended an infrastructure meeting at Trump Tower, what she thought of Trump’s comments. She replied: “I stand by my man — both of them.”
The Washington Post reported that McConnell’s wealth had increased sevenfold in 10 years, from $3.1 million in 2004 to $22.8 million in 2014.
The Washington Post reported that McConnell’s net worth increased due to an inheritance the couple received after Chao’s mother died in 2007.
Chao’s father, James Chao, founded the shipping company Foremost Group in New York in 1964.
In September 2022, Trump referred to Chao with a racist nickname in a diatribe on Truth Social while slamming McConnell.
Trump unleashed a barrage of insults against McConnell in a Truth Social post, accusing the Kentucky lawmaker of having a “death wish” and approving “trillions of dollars worth of Democrat sponsored bills” because he “hates Donald J. Trump.”
Trump proceeded to insult Chao, who served in Trump’s own administration, with a racist nickname, calling her McConnell’s “China loving wife, Coco Chow!”
Republican Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, along with some former Trump aides, denounced the post.
In November 2022, McConnell voted against protections for interracial and same-sex marriages in the Respect for Marriage Act.
The Respect for Marriage Act codified same-sex and interracial marriage into federal law, requiring states to recognize marriages that were valid in the state where they were performed. McConnell was among 36 Republicans who voted against the bill, while 12 GOP Senators and all Democrats voted in support.
McConnell did not publicly address his vote.
In March 2023, McConnell was hospitalized with a concussion and a fractured rib after he tripped and fell at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington, DC.
“This evening, Leader McConnell tripped at a local hotel during a private dinner. He has been admitted to the hospital where he is receiving treatment,” a spokesperson for McConnell told Business Insider in 2023.
McConnell had previously fractured his shoulder in 2019 after tripping on the patio of his Kentucky residence.
Chao did not release public statements about his condition at the time of the incidents.
McConnell froze, stopped speaking, and appeared disoriented on two occasions during press conferences in July and August 2023.
The Capitol physician attributed the episodes to the concussion McConnell suffered in March 2023 and cleared him to continue working, writing in a statement that “occasional lightheadedness is not uncommon in concussion recovery and can also be expected as a result of dehydration.”
On June 14, McConnell was hospitalized after emergency responders were dispatched to his address.
He has remained hospitalized for almost four weeks.
McConnell’s office released statements saying that the senator “appreciates the outpouring of support he’s receiving while he continues his recovery in the hospital” and is “receiving excellent care,” but has not disclosed details of his condition.
Dispatcher recordings indicated that emergency responders performed CPR on an “unconscious” individual, who was not named, The New York Times reported.
Republican Sens. John Thune and John Barrasso said they had spoken with McConnell on the phone, with Barrasso describing McConnell on Tuesday as “fully engaged” and “eager to get back to the Senate.”
Chao was in China when McConnell was hospitalized and did not immediately return.
Chao was in China on June 12 — two days before McConnell was hospitalized — and met with Chinese Vice President Han Zheng on June 17 in Beijing during what a spokesperson told The Louisville Courier Journal was “a long-planned trip in China to support her family’s philanthropic endeavors.”
“The senator’s health did not warrant an immediate return to the US,” the spokesperson said.
She has since returned to the US.
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