Newsmax host and far-right activist Carl Higbie appears to have grown noticeably shorter-fused since voters handed the Republican Party a thumping in Tuesday's midterm elections. In recent days, he has seemed as quick to unleash his temper on his own side as on Democratic opponents.

During his Friday night program, Higbie and his guests — former assistant attorney general Theo Wold and former U.S. attorney Jay Town — discussed the threat of the new Democratic majority freezing out President Donald Trump's judicial and administrative appointments when the new Congress takes hold on January 6. But before releasing his panelists, Higbie raised another, more devastating “freeze” in the Senate — this one involving embattled Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, a fixture of the chamber since 1985 whose legacy includes reshaping the federal judiciary — the very fight his panel had just been discussing.

“Our correspondent, Kilmeny Dukhat was down on Capitol Hill, and pressed Mitch McConnell [for answers], and watch this,” Higbie told the panel, airing footage of the encounter that was flagged by Alternet.

In the clip, Dukhat asks McConnell — seated in a wheelchair while a Newsmax chyron reading “Mitch McConnell Freezes Again” flares beneath the video — “Senator McConnell, can I get your quick reaction to the midterms, the GOP's midterm losses?”

“What do you think is going to change?” Dukhat presses. The question draws only a vacant stare from the 84-year-old senator — the longest-serving party leader in Senate history, who announced in 2024 that he would step down from the top Republican post after earlier on-camera freezing episodes — whose health troubles predate his mysterious three-month absence from the Senate — a gap that has since fueled accusations that GOP handlers steer him through Senate votes.

“Do you think that Republicans will get anything done in the lame duck session?” Dukhat prods. Again there is no answer, only an awkward pause as McConnell's gaze appears to melt into a disengaged rictus.

“That can't be legal! He's a vegetable,” Higbie exclaims at the end of the video.

“Two things here, Carl,” Wold replies. “No. 1: this isn't just an ideological conflict for the soul of the Republican Party now. It's a generational one. We're tired of the geriatric gerontocracy ruling the conservative movement. No. 2: the idea that [Sen. Thom] Tillis and these folks now want to negotiate on things like amnesty with the Democrats. Look, you can't negotiate with a tiger when your face is inside of its mouth, okay? What we need now are fighters, fighters who are not wheelchair bound, but who can actually stand on their own two feet.”

“Yeah. Unbelievable. Well, we'll see what happens — or doesn't happen — in the next two months and then the next two years,” Higbie grumbles. His timeline tracks the Senate calendar: the lame duck session is the party's last window to move Trump's appointments before the incoming Democratic majority is seated on January 6 and gains the power to stall them.

The moment echoes earlier criticism from longtime conservative political commentator Charlie Sykes, who said in September: “It looks like they're just going to wheel him out in emergency situations when they absolutely need his vote. The compassionate response to seeing Mitch McConnell is, ‘oh, no, let him retire. This is almost elder abuse.’”